Tennessee responded to a frustrating weekend in Nashville with a resounding 13–4 win over Austin Peay on Tuesday, clicking on all cylinders with a sharp, aggressive performance on both sides of the ball.
Ethan Baiotto had a strong start for Tennessee on the mound. Baiotto was mostly pitching to contact, which led to a few baserunners, especially early. Still, Baiotto worked out of trouble and always looked in control.
Baiotto’s only blunder came in the top of the third when he gave up a solo shot for Austin Peay’s first run of the game. He came out of the game after three innings.
Tennessee got off to an explosive start offensively. Garrett Wright lined the first pitch he saw down the left-field line for a leadoff double. After Blaine Brown grounded out to the shortstop and moved Wright to third. Henry Ford hit a monstrous two-run home run to give Tennessee an early 2-0 lead.
The offense didn’t stop there for Tennessee in the first. Blake Grimmer set it up again with a line-drive single down the right field line. Reese Chapman followed with a walk before Manny Marin grounded an RBI single up the middle to tack on another run. The inning came to an end when Tyler Myatt grounded into a double play.
In the second, Tennessee’s offense received help from Austin Peay’s defense, or lack thereof. With one out, Jay Abernathy hit a high fly ball to left field, but with a little bit of wind, the outfielder dropped the ball, and Abernathy hustled his way to second.
In the next at bat, Abernathy attempted to steal third as Wright grounded the ball softly to second base. The third baseman overthrew the ball to first as Wright beat it out for an infield single, allowing Abernathy to score from second on the play.
The offense kept rolling in the third inning. After another leadoff double by Grimmer, Chapman was hit by a pitch, setting up Manny Marin for another RBI single to left. Myatt drew a walk to load the bases and set Levi Clark up for a two-RBI single to increase the lead to 7-1. Abernathy struck out for the first out of the inning, but that did not stop Tennessee’s momentum.
On the very next pitch, Wright collected his third hit in three innings in the form of a three-run bomb to left field, increasing Tennessee’s lead to 10-1.
Austin Peay’s pitcher, Chance Cox, came out after the home run, giving way to Colin Carney. Carney was very strong, immediately quieting Tennessee’s offense.
Austin Peay drove in a second run on a sacrifice fly in the fifth inning to drive in its second run of the game.
Carney went 2 1/3 innings, getting Austin Peay out of the long third inning and handing Tennessee its first scoreless inning on offense in the fourth. Tennessee’s offense figured him out too, getting to him in the fifth inning for one run and knocking him out of the game in the sixth.
Josh Elander gave Trent Grindlinger, Hunter High, Nate Eisfelder, Finley Bates and Chris Newstrom a chance to get some reps in the field and at the plate as the lead increased in the fifth and sixth innings. Elander also gave opportunities to a number of bullpen arms, including Mark Hindy, Jax Bishop, Chandler Day, Will Hass and Taylor Tracey.
The front of Tennessee’s bullpen behind Baiotto was fantastic as well. Deering, Hindy, Bishop and Day combined for three innings in relief, allowing one run on two hits while striking out three.
The back of the bullpen was not so effective, however. Tennessee needed three pitchers to record the last six outs of the game. Still, Brady Frederick had to get out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam only after Austin Peay scored two runs.
Tennessee responded with two runs of its own in the bottom of the eighth, and Brady Frederick went back to the mound to finally close it out in the ninth.
Overall, it was a very clean and professional game for Tennessee, and Elander was most excited about that after the game.
“A double-double is something we love,” Elander said. “So double-digit runs, double-digit hits, just getting out of the gates.”
Elander continued by highlighting the strong defense and pitching.
“As much as we’re asking those guys to move from second to third to short, in and out, I thought it was pretty clean,” Elander said. “Outside of a few walks, I thought our guys really, really responded.”
Tennessee will try to carry some of this momentum into its series against LSU this weekend.
“We just show what we can do, and just get more belief in ourselves,” Clark said after the game. “It’s the defending national champs, you know, rowdy crowd down there and a really good program, so it’s going to be a lot of fireworks.”
Tennessee will host LSU this weekend, beginning on Friday at 5:30 p.m. ET.
