NASHVILLE, Tenn.--Vanderbilt's RJ Austin homered and drove in four runs, leading Vanderbilt to a 9-3 victory over Kentucky at Hawkins Field on Saturday afternoon in a series-clinching win.
With the game tied at two in the third, Austin and Chris Maldonado hit back-to-back home runs off left-handed starter Tyler Bosma. Austin added a first-inning sacrifice fly and a seventh-inning, run-scoring single also.
"He was seeing the ball pretty well," Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin said. "The home run, I thought--it was a solo, but it got us back after we gave up some runs."
Thomas Schultz threw three innings of one-run ball to pick up the win. He threw 50 pitches and though he struck out just one, he got five ground-ball outs and allowed four runners. The lone damage came on Jackson Gray's home run to center in the seventh.
"I really thought that's the best he's thrown," Corbin said. "I thought his velocity was good and I thought his breaking ball was sharp."
Maldonado and Matthew Polk each had two hits for Vanderbilt (31-11, 15-5 Southeastern Conference), which remains alone atop the SEC's overall standings.
Ryan Ginther pitched the eighth and the ninth, saving closer Nick Maldonado, who threw 11 pitches in Friday's win, potentially for Sunday's final game.
Bosma constantly fell behind in the count in the first, and Vanderbilt made him pay.
Enrique Bradfield Jr. singled to center to start things and with one out, RJ Schreck walked and Bulger loaded the bases with an infield single to third. Austin hit a ball to shallow left near the line that shortstop Grant Smith caught with his back to the infield. Bradfield scored easily and Schreck, seeing the throw go home, took third and scored when Maldonado lined the next pitch to center.
Kentucky strung together a walk and a bunt single and then Emilien Pitre singled on an 0-2 pitch that scored a run. Hunter Gilliam then hammered a ball over Polk’s head to deep left for a game-tying single.
"They had the one inning where it looked like they were onto some pitches," Corbin said.
Vandy re-took the lead when Austin homered (exit velocity of 107 MPH) over the big wall in left with two outs in the third. Maldonado (99) followed with a blast over the shorter portion of the left-field wall to make it 4-2.
"I was up there competing and just trying to see the ball down, because I was swinging at pitches all over that at-bat," Austin said. "I was trying to shorten my swing up and I got a change-up down and I just stayed through it and the ball went out."
Vanderbilt lefty Hunter Owen made his first start in two weeks, with mixed results.
The good: Owen's off-speed stuff was tough for the Wildcats to handle and his fastball, which sat at 93-4 most of the day, proved tough to handle at times.
The bad: Owen's control started to wane around the fourth, including a span of eight balls in nine pitches. Kentucky made him pay with five hits and two walks, though two were balls to the outfield that could have been caught, including the one to Polk as one well in front of Schreck, who broke back instead of in with his first step.
Owen also didn't use the high-70s curve that's been so effective this season, throwing it once and nearly hitting a batter in the head with it.
"We were gonna go a certain distance. If the pitches were strained going into 60s, we may take him out," Corbin said. "If it was a little bit easier going into 80s, let him, maybe, let him go that distance there.
"But with [Kentucky], nothing's easy. They get to two strikes and they battle and they just make you earn everything."
That took a toll on the pitch count, just as it did to Carter Holton (101 pitches in 3 2/3 innings) the night before. So after 75 pitches (52 for strikes), the Commodores went to Scultz in the fifth, who got the 'Cats 1-2-3 for the first time since Owen did it in the first.
Austin added a big two-RBI single off Austin Strickland in the seventh to make it 7-3.
Vanderbilt tacked on two more in the eighth on a Schreck ground-out and a wild pitch that scored Bradfield.
The teams play again Sunday at 2 Central.
