Tennessee baseball is off to a 4-0 start to the season with a quartet of run-rule victories. After outscoring opponents 75-6 in its first four games of the season, the challenge increases for the Vols this weekend as they host Samford for a three-game series at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
The SoCon’s coaches picked Samford to finish second in the conference this season and the Bulldogs are a consistently solid program. Samford is off to a 3-1 start to the 2025 season, sweeping Valparaiso the opening week of the season before losing to Jacksonville State in a Tuesday night matchup.
Entering the second weekend of the season, Tennessee plans on rolling with the same starting pitching plan as they entered the season’s opening weekend with.
“We need to put our best foot forward, and I think that involves Liam (Doyle) throwing with a full bullpen behind him, and Marcus (Phillips) will throw game two,” Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello said on Tuesday. “We’ll kind of, well for now, we’ll do what we did the first weekend (vs. Hofstra), you know, use those two guys. Give Marcus the respect of preparing, and also, he’s earned it, but also really just kind of focus on game one.”
Vitello gave Doyle the ball to open the season against Hofstra last week. After an impressive offseason after transferring to Tennessee from Ole Miss, Doyle dominated the Pride in his debut. Doyle surrendered zero walks and just one hit while striking out 11 batters in five innings pitched.
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Phillips started for Tennessee in game two and turned in a solid performance, striking out four batters in four scoreless innings. The hard throwing right hander allowed one hit and two walks with his command of the strike zone being a minor issue.
His ability to consistently throw strikes was an issue for Phillips in his first season at Tennessee. If the junior right hander can improve his command then he can be a high level starting pitcher for the Vols’ this weekend.
Vitello has yet to make a decision about who will start on Sunday. That is the same way he approached the pitching plan the opening weekend of the season.. Veteran Nate Snead ended up starting game three and allowed one run on two hits and two walks in three innings pitched.
Long term, left-handed pitcher Dylan Loy and right-handed pitcher Tegan Kuhns are two of Tennessee’s top candidates to win the Sunday starter job. Neither has made their season debut after Kuhns battled illness last weekend and Loy is still working his way back from a minor, non arm, upper body injury.
It is currently uncertain whether either will pitch this weekend against a strong Bulldogs team.
Tennessee and Samford’s three games series is scheduled to get under way on Friday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. ET but expected cold weather in Knoxville could change the weekend’s schedule.
