Vanderbilt used a dominant Sunday performance for the second time in three weeks to salvage a win and some momentum from an otherwise disappointing weekend series. Ole Miss took games 1 and 2 by scores of 3-8 and 1-7, but Vandy came out on top by a score of 13-0 on Sunday.
The only major pitching standout was Connor Fennell, who pitched a complete game shutout on Sunday and only allowed four hits while striking out 11 in 7 innings. This extends the streak of Vandy having a pitcher deliver a complete game shutout to 12 straight seasons.
Offensively, no Vanderbilt batter hit over .300 in the series other than Colin Barczi and Riley Nelson, who went 5-11 and 4-12, respectively. Jonathan Vastine and Braden Holcomb hit Vanderbilt’s only home runs of the weekend.
Game Recaps
Friday’s game got off to about as poor a start as possible, with Vandy not recording a hit in the 1st and then JD Thompson getting taken deep on his first pitch. Vanderbilt responded in the 2nd with a leadoff triple from Jacob Humphrey, who then scored on a sac fly. Unfortunately, Humphrey had an awkward slide into 3rd and would be removed in the next inning and placed into concussion protocol. The 1-1 score held until the 5th inning, where a leadoff home run was followed by three singles, an HBP, and a wild pitch would plate 4 for Ole Miss. Ole Miss would then put in their relief ace, who kept it a 5-1 game until the top of the 8th when Braden Holcomb took him deep with an opposite-field 2-run homer that cut the lead to 5-3. In the bottom of the 8th, however, Tommy O’Rourke would give up three runs due to a single, a batter reaching on an error, a wild pitch, and a home run. At 8-3, this game was all but over, and Vandy went 1-2-3 in the 9th.
Saturday’s game had a similar trend of offensive struggles, making one nightmare inning feel insurmountable. The game was 0 -0 in the 2nd when RJ Austin snapped a 0-28 streak with a single and proceeded to steal 3rd and then home, giving Vandy a 1-0 lead. Cody Bowker looked extremely strong through 3 innings, not giving up a single hit and striking out 5. In the 4th, however, Bowker lost things mentally and his command suffered as he started hanging pitches left and right. 2 singles followed by a walk, a HBP, and another single scored 3, then another single followed by a home run scored three more. A single and a double were hit after the bases were cleared, but strong defense to get two outs kept the Ole Miss lead at 6-1. Matthew Shorey relieved Bowker and gave up a solo shot in the 5th inning to make it 7-1. After that, there was almost no offense from either side, as Vandy only recorded two more hits and Ole Miss 1, but with the score so lopsided, that was not good enough to make anything remotely close.
Sunday’s game differed entirely from the previous two, as Vandy started hot and stayed hot for the rest. Riley Nelson, Brodie Johnston, and Braden Holcomb loaded the bases in the 1st thanks to 2 singles and a walk, respectively, before Mac Rose brought home 2 with an RBI single. In the 2nd, Jonathan Vastine hit a leadoff homer, Mike Mancini walked, Rustan Rigdon singled, and RJ Austin brought them home with a 2-RBI single to make it a 5-0 game. Ole Miss head coach Mike Bianco got himself ejected in the bottom of the 2nd as he protested Connor Fennell’s fast pace on the mound, but that failed to inject life into his team as they went in order. Neither team scored in the 3rd or 4th innings as Fennell continued to dominate the Ole Miss batters, not allowing a hit in either inning and striking out 4. Vandy found their offense again in the 5th as Colin Barczi hit a double to the gap that scored Holcomb from first (who had walked). Vastine hit an RBI single and was brought home when Mancini snuck a triple down the 1st base line. In the 6th, Vandy scored three more due to a Riley Nelson single, Holcomb ROE, Mac Rose RBI single, Barczi RBI single, and a Vastine sac fly. In the 7th, Vandy made it 13-0 with a Rigdon HBP, Austin ROE, Nelson RBI single, and Johnston sac fly. The game would end early with Vandy being up by more than 10 after seven innings when Ole Miss failed to score in the 7th.
TAKEAWAYS
Consistently Inconsistent
One of the biggest knocks on this team (other than the offense’s lack of power) is how inconsistent they are. This is now the 3rd week in a row where they lose the next game after recording a sweep of an SEC opponent. It’s the 2nd away series in a row where the offense looks listless against quality pitching in the first two games, only to go ballistic in the final match. I don’t know if we have seen a Vanderbilt team in the last few years with a ceiling as high as this one, but as low of a floor. They can sweep top 5 opponents, but then make middle-of-the-pack SEC teams look like worldbeaters against them just 5 days later. Vandy will have to use these final 3 weekend series to try and develop consistency in their offensive and pitching performances.
The Offense Cannot bail out Pitching Mistakes.
Now, if someone were to look at the whole series stats, one would see that Vanderbilt recorded four more hits and scored two more runs than Ole Miss over the three-game series. But make no mistake about it, this was a disappointing offensive series that once again proves the margin of error for the pitching staff is next to zero. On both Friday and Saturday’s games, the pitching staff was plagued by HBPs and wild pitches that are very uncharacteristic of this group of pitchers. These mistakes led to several cheaply earned runs for Ole Miss and put Vandy in holes that this offense cannot dig itself out of. While it is not fair that this critique falls on the shoulders of the pitching staff, we know what this offense is and that it cannot support bad pitching/defensive performances. What we do know is that this staff has the capability of carrying a bad offensive day. The Vandyboys staff cannot make a habit of making these mistakes, giving up runs that teams don’t have to work for. That will almost undoubtedly lead to Vandy dropping games it could have won.
It is worth noting that the pitching management was off due to Sawyer Hawks’ absence. One could argue that Bowker and Thompson were kept longer than normal due to the limited number of high-quality bullpen arms. On top of that, several pitchers were thrown in unusual situations to fill in for Hawks. This could have contributed to some of the extraordinary mental and mechanical mistakes from this typically reliable group on Friday and Saturday. Even though he is not a starter, the Hawks have the 4th most innings pitched on this roster (behind only Thompson, Bowker, and Nye) and are among the best pitchers in the country. His absence was keenly felt, and Vandy will be relieved to have him back next week.
Sunday Successes Salvage Series
Critics of this team may not act like it, but in theory, this team is doing what they must to position themselves well for the postseason. Anyone who has followed SEC baseball for long enough knows the adage “win at home, don’t get swept on the road”. Except for the Arkansas and Florida series, this team is doing exactly that. A 15-15 SEC record is more than good enough to get into the NCAA tournament and has, in recent years, gotten teams in the conversation to host regionals, too. While this team’s aspirations are much higher than just making it to the tournament, they’re doing what they must to keep themselves afloat for hosting and national seed conversations. Series victories at home against Kentucky and Alabama should almost certainly result in a Nashville regional. If you can go into Knoxville and win (the Vols have dropped their last 2 SEC series), then a national seed is in play. Those results are far from guaranteed, but Vanderbilt has kept their high aspirations alive with these clutch Sunday wins.
Development is Apparent
To find a positive other than “hey, at least they won Sunday,” one other good thing struck me this weekend: Vandy’s young core is becoming much more mature. By the “young core,” I refer to Vandy’s four underclassmen in the starting lineup: Brodie Johnston, Rustan Rigdon, and Colin Barczi. While these four still have some inconsistencies, they are clearly starting to handle SEC pitching and the season's grind much better.
Rigdon has always had one of the best approaches on the team, but he is starting to see the ball well and deliver consistent results at the plate. He only had two hits on the weekend but an OBP of nearly .500 thanks to drawing three walks and a HBP. Johnston is still figuring out how to marry his eagerness to hit balls hard with an approach that accounts for SEC batting, but he is looking silly less and less while barreling balls up much more consistently over the last 3 weeks. Barczi continues to be cursed by the baseball gods and has his hard contact result in outs more than just about any player I’ve ever watched, but he was Vandy’s most consistent bat this weekend and has been super clutch throughout the year. Given his defensive prowess, if he can lift the ball more consistently, he could be one of the most valuable players in the league. Lastly, Holcomb finally came back to Earth after a scorching start to SEC play, but he still had a home run and put together amazing ABs throughout the weekend. Sure, some ended in strikeouts, but Holcomb had at least five plate appearances that exceeded six pitches and had complete counts. Even if the stats from this weekend don't make it extremely apparent, just watching him demonstrates that his eye has developed a ton over the season and that he’s on the verge of putting it all together.
Perhaps it was unfair to expect so much of these four, regardless of how highly ranked they were as high school products or because of strong summer league performances. Even with Barczi and Holcomb, fans would do well to remember that they did not play that much last year. Holcomb was not a mainstay in the lineup until halfway through SEC play (and 2/3rds of the way through the whole season), and Barczi entered the lineup even later in the season thanks to injuries and a lack of options at DH. It was unfair to those two to think of them as veterans who could come in and dominate when they hadn’t combined a full season of SEC experience. The weight on the shoulders of this group of youngsters has been hefty this year, but signs are starting to point to them being able to bear it. If they can continue to put things together this year, this bodes well for the fate of this team and the Vandyboys’ prospects in the future.
Wrap-Up
Ultimately, a dominant Sunday game salvaged an otherwise disappointing series for the second time in three weeks and allowed the team and fans to head into the week with some optimism. But now, more than ever, is the time that this team must find itself and start playing consistently. Vandy will take on Alabama next weekend at the Hawk as the academic school year ends and the Vandyboys attempt to start a successful run into the postseason.
