Baseball needs to rebound from sweep

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By Joshua Huff

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UK baseball will look to rebound from a disheartening series sweep at the hands of Ole Miss when it takes on Tennessee Thursday in a crucial three-game weekend series.

No. 25 UK (27-17, 9-12 SEC) heads down to Knoxville, Tenn., to face the Volunteers in what will be the Cats’ third-to-last SEC series of the season. After being swept by Ole Miss, the Cats will need to find their way back into the win column this weekend to stay alive in the tumultuous SEC tournament hunt.

Tennessee (26-16, 8-13 SEC) sits a game behind the Cats in the SEC East division, ranked fifth to the Cats’ fourth. The Volunteers are familiar with the Cats’ downhill slide, having lost three consecutive series and seven out of their last 10 games.  After starting 12-0, the Volunteers have nearly mimicked the up-and-down season of the Cats who have lost seven of twelve and three games in a row.

UK’s pitching staff is partially to blame for the skid. After getting absolutely hammered this past weekend by Ole Miss, the Cats will look to a rotation that has given up 66 runs in the past five games. Even with an offense that averages 8.25 runs per game, the Cats continuously find themselves in early holes and are unable to recover.

The one bright spot is junior A.J. Reed. With three more home runs against Ole Miss, Reed has now hit a NCAA-leading 19, including 59 runs batted in.  With an offense that has three players with 60 or more hits, the Cats have a potent lineup. UK will need to find a way to put runs up early.

Tennessee’s rotation allows 4.2 runs a game and is led by sophomore Andy Cox (3-1). Cox has a 1.96 earned run average and has pitched in 55 innings, giving up just 33 hits compared to 46 strikeouts.

The pitching will be the key to a UK victory this weekend. The team will look to bounce back and make a run starting at 7:30 p.m. at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.