Distilling a Sweep: How Tennessee Took 3 from the LSU Tigers
suxept? sweuxpt?
Tennessee took three games over the weekend against LSU, the defending national champions and the team that eliminated UT from the College World Series in 2023. Obviously this Tiger team isn’t quite the same squad as last year—Dylan Crews and Paul Skenes are gone, and LSU hasn’t won a SEC series yet this season. But Tommy White and Nate Ackenhausen are still around, and while you can’t really get a “get back” against a team that took you out of title contention, it’s still LSU baseball, and a sweep feels pretty good. Here’s a look at how Tennessee got the brooms out against the Tigers this weekend.
Game 1
Tennessee came into game 1 Friday with a 58% win probability according to warrennolan.com and a 68% probability according to d1baseball.com. The Vols grabbed a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the 1st on a Billy Amick home run that also scored Blake Burke, and the Vols never relinquished that lead. LSU’s last best shot came in the 3rd inning when (A) Ashton Larson drew a walk to load the bases, giving the Tigers a 32% win probability. Those odds quickly swung back in UT’s favor with AJ Causey, relieving the starter Chris Stamos, struck out Mac Bingham, putting the Vols’ win prob. at 82%.
In the bottom of that same inning, (B) Dylan Dreiling drew a walk that scored Christian Moore, pushing the Vols to a 95% win prob. and a 3-1 lead that was never in real danger afterwards.
Game 2
While warrennolan.com only had the Vols with a 54% win prob. going into Saturday’s game, D1 had Tennessee at 68%. Those numbers seemed to be in danger early when (C) Amick threw Steven Milam’s sacrifice bunt attempt into right field, allowing Braswell to score from 2nd and leaving two runners in scoring position with no outs. But Drew Beam got two Ks swinging and Tommy Tanks dribbled out to first without the Tigers doing any more damage. Tennessee took over in the 6th with (D) Amick doubling to left, followed by Dreiling’s sharp line drive to the gap in right, scoring Amick and Burke, giving Tennessee a 2-0 lead and an 80% win probability.
Game 3
Having sealed the series, Tennessee went for the sweep on Sunday with a 61% win prob. via Warren Nolan and a similar 69% probability according to D1 Baseball, the closest those two sources had been all weekend. The Tigers’ best chance came in the 6th, when Hayden Travinski’s monster solo homer over the porch in left was followed by (E) Larson’s two-out double. It was a bang-bang play at second that originally went against LSU but was overturned on replay. The Tigers had a 37% win probability that was trending sharply in their favor. But facing a wall of Tiger momentum, Andrew Behnke took the mound and struck out Bingham on four pitches.
In the bottom of the inning, (F) Christian Moore homered (tying him with Burke atop the career HR list at UT), giving the Vols an 85% win prob. and a lead they’d keep to sweep the Tigers, taking Tennessee to 30-6 on the season and 10-5 in the SEC, good for second place in the SEC East behind Kentucky, who has played havoc on the SEC so far this season and who hosts the Vols for a three-game set starting Friday.
Looking Ahead
Tennessee plays a midweek game against Bellarmine Tuesday, but it’s that series against Kentucky that looms large for the Vols. Kentucky is 13-1 in SEC games this season and they play a style different from anyone else in the league. The Cats have half as many home runs as the Vols do but more stolen bases (77) than any other team in the league has even attempted (Vandy has 72 attempts, UK has 97) and they lead the SEC in sacrifice bunts. It also helps they have a 3.65 team ERA and hold opponents to a .271 batting average. There will be much more in the preview post later this week, but go ahead and enjoy this sweep over LSU, because Friday we head to the gates of small ball hell.