Vols Baseball Post Season Step 1

Tennessee is fighting for their tournament lives in Gainesville this weekend and Rod Delmonico is fighting to save his job. Not all will agree with me but I think Delmonico is truly on the hot seat right now if he doesn’t make the SEC tournament. Before tonight’s game Tennessee was sitting at 10th in the league. Only the top 8 teams advance to the conference tournament. More on Delmonico later this weekend.

James Adkins took the mound for Tennessee in game one on Thursday. He was 1-1 with a 4.85 ERA against the Gators in his career heading into tonight’s game. Adkins pitched in Gainesville as a freshman and gave up 6 earned runs in 4 innings.

The Gators would go with Kyle Mullaney who was recognized as the SEC Freshman of the Week on Monday after playing a key part in the Gators series victory at LSU. On the season, Mullaney was 4-1 with a 4.85 earned run average in 16 appearances.

Who should you watch for in this series for Tennessee? Julio Borbon. He is 14-28 (.500) in his career against the Gators.

The game itself came right down to the wire. Neither team could score early. It was the fourth inning when J.P. Arencibia doubled and later scored. Shawn Griffin hit a sac fly that scored Yan Gomes. The Vols led 2-0.

In the top of the sixth, Tony Delmonico hit an RBI single that scored Arencibia to put Tennessee on top 3-0.

The Gators finally scored off of a two-run home run by Jonathan Pigott in the bottom of the sixth to make it 3-2.

After Tennessee plated two in the seventh, the Gators answered with two of their own in the bottom of the inning. Tennessee 5, Florida 4.

Chad Maddox hit a pinch hit home run in the top of the eighth inning. It turned out to be the game winning hit.

Jeff Lockwood got the final four outs of the game giving up one run. He struck out the games final batter on a 3-2 fastball.

James Adkins and Chad Maddox were chosen as co-players of the game.

The win is huge for Tennessee and just as big is the fact that both LSU and Kentucky lost tonight. That puts the Vols in 8th place in the SEC which would be good enough for the conference tournament if the season ended today. However, the Vols have to match the number of wins of both Kentucky and LSU in the final two games of the regular season.

Another scenario could happen if Tennessee swept the series from Florida by winning all three games. If that happened, by my calculations Tennessee would pass Florida in the East and would make the tournament.

An interesting tidbit in the game: Tennessee intentionally walked Matt Laporta all five times he came to the plate. Laporta has 19 home runs on the season.