Kentucky baseball opened SEC play with a sweep over the Georgia Bulldogs.
While the Cats have since won a second series against the Missouri Tigers, five key takeaways still stuck out from the win over the Bulldogs.
1) The emergence of Ryan Nicholson
When graduate student Ryan Nicholson arrived in Lexington from Cincinnati, he was dubbed a gold glove caliber first baseman and an elite power bat.
Unfortunately for the Wildcats and Nicholson, he did not get off to a good start in blue and white.
”I think I was just wanting to do a bit too much and wanted to put up numbers and perform,” Nicholson said.
This all seemed to change with one swing when, in the team’s midweek win over Murray State, Nicholson crushed a two-run home run and let out a season’s worth of emotion by screaming and flexing as he trotted around the bases.
He rode this momentum into his first ever SEC series by going 2-4 at the plate in game one with one of Nicholson’s hits being an RBI single. He also drew a walk.
In game two, Nicholson hit 1-4 with a two-RBI double.
Game three is when Nicholson shined the brightest, finishing 2-3 with a walk. Both of his hits left the yard and he recorded three RBIs in the series sweep.
“I give him credit,” Mingione said. “He has worked his butt off. He has not stopped working. He has not stopped believing.”
Nicholson tied with teammate Émilien Pitre for the team lead in RBIs on the weekend with six.
“I really just made some minor adjustments on what I’ve done previously,” Nicholson said about his season turnaround. “Honestly, I think I’ve just relaxed a bit more.”
2) Keeping Charlie Condon at bay
Georgia’s Charlie Condon entered Lexington as undoubtedly one of the best hitters in all of college baseball with a .569 batting average, a 1.308 slugging percentage and a .670 on base percentage.
“He’s a special player, we’ll see that come draft time,” Mingione said.
Condon could’ve spoiled the Wildcats weekend, but the Wildcats were able to hold him to just one hit on the weekend.
That lone hit came in game one when Condon went 1-3 with a two-RBI double and also drew two walks.
In game two, Condon went 0-2 with three walks and an RBI that came via a bases-loaded walk.
In game three, Condon went 0-3 with two strikeouts.
Condon left Lexington with a .521 batting average, a 1.192 slugging percentage and a .648 on base percentage.
In the end, the Wildcats challenged all the other Bulldogs not named Condon to beat them, and they succeeded as they kept the potent Bulldogs offense at bay en route to the three game sweep.
3) Getting weird
Coach Mingione was not happy with the team’s dugout energy during the team’s series loss to Kennesaw State.
Assistant coach Nick Ammirati challenged the team to “get weird” in the dugout.
“Just getting creative with our dugout stuff,” Mason Moore said on the meaning of getting weird.
Mingione even put dugout captain Ryan Hagenow on probation.
“He put a strap around his leg and everything else and I’m like, ‘Hags, really?’” Mingione said jokingly.
The Wildcat dugout delivered and was on another level throughout the entire week from an energy standpoint.
Moore, the team’s Sunday starting pitcher, debuted a bright pink bucket hat, eye black on his face and some stylish sunglasses in the midweek game.
The team carried this energy into the weekend and was very vocal with a wide range of gestures and chants that could be heard through all parts of the ballpark, which included mocking Mingione’s coaching mannerisms while he was coaching third base in the teams 9-3 game two win over the Bulldogs.
For the series finale, which also fell on St. Patrick’s Day, Friday starter Travis Smith had on a green shamrock bucket hat while Moore and Nicholson both wore wrist tape that had “get weird” written on it.
“That’s kinda the thing right now,” Moore said. “We’re getting weird.”
Every time a Wildcat touched home plate, the whole team was seen cheering and celebrating for their teammate.
“Just a fun week all the way around,” Mingione siad. “To watch them celebrate each other’s successes, the way they serve each other, the way they just rally for each other.”
This energy even had an effect on the players on the field.
“The energy really brought everybody together and it made everybody just go up to the plate and feel confident,” Nick Lopez said.
4) Ace Mason Moore
During the team’s Super Regional run in 2023, Moore was one of the team’s most valuable arms out of the bullpen.
In 2024, Moore made the transition to a starter and he has been dominant through five starts.
“He’s super talented, didn’t need much help, he just needed the experience and starts,” Mingione said. “So far he’s done well, long season, a lot more to go, but man proud he’s a Wildcat.”
His first SEC test came in game three against Georgia and, outside of a two-run home run, Moore pitched six strong innings. He also set his career high with eight strikeouts.
Moore has a 4-0 record on the year and leads all Wildcat starters with a 2.28 ERA, 27 strikeouts, a .177 batting average against and a 0.99 WHIP, which refers to a pitcher’s ability to keep runners from reaching base.
Moore remains the premier arm for the Wildcats and has thus far made the difficult transition from the bullpen to a starter look easy.
5) Comeback Cats
Despite a few lopsided final scores in the week of play, the Wildcats had to come back on five different occasions.
The first one came against Murray State when the Cats got down 6-0 and responded by scoring 10 unanswered runs to win the game 10-6.
Then, in game one against the Bulldogs, the Wildcats got down 4-0 and came back to take a 6-4 lead. Gregoria did not go away as it battled back to take a 7-6 lead in the top of the sixth, but this lead only lasted two batters into the bottom of the sixth as Nolan McCarthy crushed a game tying home run.
Devin Burkes laid down a sacrifice bunt to give the Cats an 8-7 lead and, after taking the lead, the Cats added eight more runs while the Bulldogs only produced three more runs which ultimately resulted in the 16-10 victory.
Kentucky took a 2-0 lead in game two and did not surrender it, so no comeback was necessary.
The Wildcats then got down 2-0 in the early going in game three before the “Bat Cats” scored 12 unanswered runs to result in the 12-2 mercy rule victory to complete the series sweep.
“We had a big emphasis on coming from behind and doing what we can to just fight back and never give up,” Nolan McCarthy said after the game one comeback. “I think we had full confidence we were gonna come back and we never had a doubt in our mind.”
Kentucky will hit the road for its second SEC series when it will travel to Columbia, Missouri for a three game set against the Missouri Tigers. Game one will take place on Friday, Mar. 22, 2024 with first pitch scheduled for 7 p.m. EST.
