With the offseason officially underway for Kentucky baseball, a trio of Wildcats including Travis Smith have entered the transfer portal.
Starting with Smith, it was an up and down year for the right hander as he began the first five weeks of the season as the Friday night starter, though he never quite hit his stride on the mound.
After going down with an injury, he was replaced by Trey Pooser, who took the promotion and ran with it, becoming Kentucky’s ace in the postseason.
Once Smith was healthy, he made six appearances out of the bullpen before going on another hiatus from the mound.
He returned once again in the SEC Tournament where he started a bullpen game for Cats in which he threw one inning.
His final outing this season came in the team’s final game against Florida, where he tossed a scoreless inning.
All in all, the redshirt sophomore finished the year with a 6.21 ERA across 37.2 innings of work in which he gave up 26 earned runs and struck out 33 batters.
Another arm that entered the portal was Drew Lafferty, who was the Wildcats’ midweek starter this season.
The righty got off to a great start, but began to struggle towards the back end of his eight starts and it resulted in him being left off the postseason roster for Kentucky.
On the season, Lafferty finished with a 6.86 ERA as he pitched 21 innings and gave up 16 earned runs while striking out 17 batters.
Rounding out the trio of transfers was Lukas Schramm, who appeared sparingly for the Cats as he only made nine appearances on the season with his last one being at the beginning of March.
In those appearances, he hit to a .238 average as he accumulated five hits, including a double, triple and home run.
Kentucky baseball has made a name for being a strong portaling team since the introduction of the immediate eligibility rule, building strong rosters — including the one that earned a trip to the Men’s College World Series for the first time in program history this past season — but just as the portal giveth, it can also taketh away.
