Liam Doyle is a name that every college baseball fan should know by now. After transferring from within the SEC to No. 15 Tennessee in the offseason, Doyle has blown any expectations out of the water with the stellar season he has been building as the Vols’ Friday night starter.
Doyle currently leads the NCAA in strikeouts at 115 and boasts a top 25 ranking ERA at 2.39 in 67 1/3 innings. He holds an 8-2 record and has been a stable force in the Tennessee pitching room, leaving zero questions about who would take the series-opening role each week.
Many scouts praise his fastball as potentially the best in college baseball currently. Doyle can consistently keep it in the mid-90s and has even touched 100.
Unfortunately for the Vols, the dependable play of Doyle defending the mound on Fridays hit a roadblock this past weekend against No. 8 Auburn when thunderstorms caused chaos in the Tennessee bullpen.
The opening game had its start time shuffled around multiple times before the first pitch occurred at 8 p.m. local time. The game got through the top of the first before the umpires paused play, and an announcement was eventually made that the remainder of Game 1 would resume the next day.
This complication in the schedule caused Doyle to be “burned” for the Friday game after just that first inning. The Vols rotated six pitchers over the eight innings, holding Auburn to four runs in that period. Unfortunately, offensive struggles resulted in a loss on Doyle’s personal record for a game.
During the following game, the Vols kept things close, although they never quite took the lead until some bottom-of-the-ninth heroics from Dalton Bargo tied the lead-up and forced the game into extra innings.
Within minutes of Bargo’s solo homer to knot the game up at 4-4, a downpour engulfed Lindsey Nelson Stadium, calling for the second delay of the weekend and extra innings occurring Sunday.
When Sunday came and Lindsey Nelson filled up for sudden death baseball, Doyle found himself on the mound for the Vols. Doyle struck out three Auburn batters in two innings, but his biggest play came when the Vols needed it most.
The Vols just watched Bristol Carter steal third base and put himself in a prime position to score. Doyle called for a meeting among the infielders, and on the next pitch, seemingly like a drawn-up football play, Carter attempted to steal, causing Vols’ catcher Cannon Peebles to chase him back towards third. Halfway to third, Peebles tosses the ball to third baseman Manny Marin, causing Carter to spin around and sprint to home. Marin threw the ball to Doyle, who was between Carter and home plate, ready for the tag.
Following the tag, Doyle and Carter get in each other’s faces, spouting choice words to one another. The benches emerged onto the field, with both coaches frantically corraling their players back to the dugouts.
As the scene calmed down, Doyle was the lone man punished. The umpire ejected the left-handed pitcher, triggering an automatic multi-game suspension for the star. The Vols scored in this same inning, winning the game and pushing it to a series-deciding Game 3.
Auburn routed Tennessee 8-1 in the following shortened seven-inning game. Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello brought up Doyle’s suspension when after the Game 3 loss.
“I pat myself on the back and everyone else on the back for keeping composure because our best player got thrown out of the game in an elimination situation for exchanging words with a guy,” Vitello said.
Doyle missed the final game of the Auburn series and then the midweek game against Indiana State, making him clear to pitch against No. 10 Vanderbilt on Friday.
