Tennessee baseball bounced back from one of its worst weekends of Tony Vitello’s six years in Knoxville with a 4-0 week and its best showing of the season in a weekend sweep of Texas A&M.
The Vols offense showed real life at Lindsey Nelson Stadium and Tennessee responded to early game adversity three times to sweep the Aggies.
With basketball season in the rearview and conference play about to hit its stride, let’s look at where this Tennessee baseball team stands on top of its weekend series victory.
More From RTI: Everything Tony Vitello Said After Tennessee Swept Texas A&M
Jared Dickey Catcher Experiment Is Back … And Probably Here To Stay
Tennessee was ready to have Jared Dickey as one of its primary catchers this season before he fractured his hand in the fall. With the utility man missing opportunities for needed reps, Tennessee steered him more towards the outfield in preseason practice and the first month of the season.
This week marked a clear and sizable shift. Dickey caught to close Tennessee’s midweek win over Western Carolina before starting behind the plate in the Friday and Sunday games.
Dickey was mostly solid in that role though he did allow two passed balls and another wild pitch he could have stopped on Sunday. Still, Tony Vitello talked positively about Dickey behind the plate following the Sunday series finale stating he just needs to play within himself.
“I think a big key for him that I’m telling you and maybe I need to tell him is when he just stays within himself and just tries to catch the thing or throw the thing, it’s good,” Vitello said. “I’ve seen him try to throw it 100 mph to second base and the whole thing just collapses. When he just flicks it down there like you’re doing in between innings it’s pretty good and certainly defensively I know the pitchers trust him and we do too.”
So it was a solid but not perfect first week of Dickey catching. Why did the Vols make the move?
Charlie Taylor is Tennessee’s best defensive catcher but his bat has looked like it did last year for much of the last few weeks after his hot start to the season. Cal Stark’s bat has seriously cooled off after a nice start to the year and while he’s certainly more capable at the plate than Taylor he’s not the same level defensively as him.
Dickey gives you the best bat of the group and is capable behind the plate.
Why do I feel like this move is more than just an experiment and will be something we see frequently?
A few reasons. First, Tennessee wouldn’t be making this move at this point in the season if they weren’t serious about it. They certainly wouldn’t have started him in two of three SEC games if they weren’t serious about it. Lastly, Cal Stark started at designated hitter Sunday. If the Vols started both Dickey and Stark in the same game and Dickey was the one catching, that tells me they’re very serious about him spending extended time there.
Tennessee Shows It Can Win With Offense
Tennessee baseball’s offense has been its weakness so far this season. It was the strength as the Vols swept Texas A&M.
The Vols tallied 27 runs in the three-game series and scored eight or more runs in all three games. Tennessee’s offense was consistent up-and-down the lineup against the Aggies and kept the pressure on all weekend.
Zane Denton was fantastic reaching base in nine-of-11 plate appearances and hitting two home runs Sunday but really the whole lineup hit the ball well. Griffin Merritt struggled and Maui Ahuna wasn’t his best but the Vols’ offense looked deep against the Aggies— something it hasn’t often looked this season.
Granted, Texas A&M doesn’t have a great pitching staff but I was unsure Tennessee could have this offensive success against any SEC level staff. Being back at notorious hitter’s park Lindsey Nelson Stadium surely helped some but it played like a pitcher’s park Saturday as the Vols scored eight with the wind howling in from right field.
I feel confident Tennessee baseball can win games with its pitching and defense. They showed they can win them with offense this weekend. That’s an important tool to have in the tool belt as this team tries to find its rhythm.
Vols’ Starting Pitching Is Underachieving
There’s a reason I wrote that I feel confident Tennessee can win with its pitching and not that they’ve proven they can win with its pitching. That’s because they haven’t done it yet.
Tennessee entered the season with the nation’s best pitching staff: two unanimous preseason First Team All-Americans and a sophomore that was arguably better than both for two-thirds of his freshman season.
But Chase Dollander, Chase Burns and to a lesser degree Drew Beam have not pitched to their potential this season. They haven’t pitched to the level they pitched at last season either.
None of the three have been awful by any means but Dollander has struggled in the first inning of nearly every start and his ability to throw multiple pitches to get ahead early in counts — which is largely what made him so dominant last season — hasn’t been there.
Chase Burns’ start against Texas A&M largely encapsulated both he and Dollander’s season to date. A batter hammers a two-strike mistake for a two-run homer in the first inning, he gets in a groove in the middle of the game including 12 straight retired and then loses it late and gives up runs.
Burns was dominant for over half his start but then you look up after its over and he gave up five earned runs in 5.2 innings pitched. Burns and Dollander have showed why they’re special, there just hasn’t been enough consistency. Six weeks into the season and Dollander has a 3.93 ERA and Burns has a 4.15 ERA. Again, not awful, but not First Team All-American good either.
Beam has largely been the guy I expected to see. The Murfreesboro native hasn’t been as dominant as he was to start last season but he’s thrown strikes and largely been a reliable Sunday starter.
Heck, if you’re looking at this Tennessee team in the macro it really isn’t a bad thing that Burns and Dollander haven’t been perfect. The Vols find themselves under solid footing after the weekend sweep, we’ve seen Dollander and Burns show their elite stuff but they haven’t done it consistently.
We saw them do it consistently for the vast majority of last season. It is probably coming later this season. But it hasn’t been consistent this season and for right now Tennessee’s starting pitching is underachieving because of it.
Sweeping Texas A&M Was Huge Because The Gauntlet Is Coming
The media almost ruined Tony Vitello’s Sunday when a beat writer told him Tennessee’s next four SEC opponents are ranked in the nation’s top five.
But the point highlighted just how important this weekend was for Tennessee. After Missouri swept Tennessee last weekend, the Vols simply had to win this series. Sweeping the Aggies made it all the better as Tennessee is back to .500 in SEC play before the gauntlet begins.
In the next four weeks Tennessee travels to LSU, returns home to face Florida, travels to Arkansas and returns home to face Vanderbilt. That is, at worst, the three best teams in the SEC and arguably the four best teams.
This stretch is going to be extremely difficult. It would be far from a failure for Tennessee to go 5-7 in that stretch. If the Vols go 6-6 they should throw a parade. We’re going to learn a lot about this team over the next month and they’ll almost certainly take some lumps in the process.
But if the Vols come out of the stretch still afloat then they’ll find themselves in a good spot for the stretch run of — vs. Mississippi State, at Georgia, vs. Kentucky and at South Carolina.
It’s very rarely easy in the SEC but Tennessee can do some damage against that group.
But first … the gauntlet.
