No. 22 Alabama Baseball Set to Start SEC Play at Arkansas on Friday

The Crimson Tide is 14-3 as it prepares for one of its toughest road trips of the season against the No. 1 Razorbacks

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — There's nothing quite like some Southeastern Conference baseball action to get the full spring sports season into full gear.

The smell of the freshly-watered grass and the sound of the aluminum bats pinging off of baseballs are just some of the things that make spring SEC baseball great. While there are many great things about baseball, for Alabama baseball things are about to get a lot tougher.

The Crimson Tide has started the season 14-3 and is ranked as high as No. 19 in the country in the polls. So far this season the lineup has impressed in the batter's box and the team has had some surprise depth on the mound. However, something is about to happen this weekend that will dramatically increase the difficulty of Alabama's opponents.

This weekend marks the start of SEC play.

The Crimson Tide opens SEC play this weekend with a three-game road trip against the No. 1-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks. The Razorbacks are currently 12-2 and are highly regarded as the best team in the country.

Alabama coach Brad Bohannon noted in a press conference on Monday that he and his team are excited to be opening SEC play against the top team in the country but admitted that his team lacks experience.

“Everybody’s excited about starting SEC play this week and to be honest I’m excited as well,” Bohannon said. “So excited to have a tremendous challenge of going to Fayetteville and playing the No. 1 team in the country. We’re taking a really inexperienced team out there, whoever we play.

"On Friday there’s a good chance that seven of the nine position players in the lineup are guys that have never played in an SEC game. We only have two pitchers that have ever started an SEC game.”

Bohannon is right. While Alabama's roster is loaded with talent, the team is incredibly young with 19 freshmen on its roster. While they are skilled, they have never faced competition like they will in the weeks to come.

After Arkansas, Alabama will host back-to-back weekend series in Ole Miss and Tennessee, who are ranked No. 4 and No. 18 according to the Baseball America Top 25. Following those teams, the Crimson Tide will then travel to face the Texas A&M Aggies (unranked), host Auburn (unranked) and then travel again to Kentucky (unranked).

After hosting unranked Missouri, then things really heat up for Alabama. Back-to-back road trips to No. 3 Vanderbilt and unranked LSU — a deceptively good team — followed by the season finale of hosting No. 2 Mississippi State is sure to bring the Crimson Tide a lot of troubles.

Through its first 17 games of the season, Alabama has outperformed early expectations with its 14-3 record. However, some questions that were swirling around the team during the preseason still remain.

For starters, depth in the bullpen. The Crimson Tide has a solid starting rotation in ace Connor Prielipp, Dylan Smith and Antoine Jean. Tyler Ras has also outperformed expectations when his number was called due to Prielipp having an undisclosed illness — an illness that he will still be out for at least a couple of more weeks according to Bohannon.

Alabama also has solid closers in Brock Guffey and Chase Lee. However, it's the bridging the gaps that has been the problem for Alabama. While the Crimson Tide has been solid on the front end and last couple of innings, it is the in-between innings that Alabama has given up the most runs — something that the team needs to tighten down on if it wants to succeed in SEC play.

Another issue that has Alabama struggling is finding consistency in the hitting. While left fielder Will Hamiter, second baseman Peyton Wilson and third baseman Zane Denton have been able to provide consistent, high-quality at-bats, the rest of the lineup has been far from it. Sure, the lineup has some solid power hitters in right fielder Owen Diodati and Sam Praytor, but you can't count on home runs to win you ball games.

Bohannon says that along with providing more consistency in the batter's box, pitching needs to take another step forward.

“The biggest thing for me is we gotta play nine innings,” Bohannon said. “We’ve got to play nine innings and I’m really talking positionally. With the at-bats we’re just not stringing together enough good at-bats. The pitching can take another step forward. I think we’ve made some good strides defensively. We’ve got to get better offensively — more efficient, string together more really good at-bats. We go through periods of the game where we’re really kinda smothering the opponent and then a lot of times in the middle of the game we just give away five out of six at-bats and that’s got a chance to be a strength of this club.

"We’re getting some good production out of the bottom and once we get Drew [Williamson] and Sam doing what we know they can do and we cannot give away as many at-bats then we gotta chance to really do something offensively.”

There is certainly a lot of improvement to be made on this Alabama team, but there is still plenty of time for it to get things right. With the Crimson Tide attempting to make its first appearance in the SEC tournament since 2016, this team could be just the one to do it. SEC play will definitely be difficult for this Alabama team. However, it has the tools to get the job done — it just needs to optimize them and find their rhythm.

For now, though, Bohannon and his Crimson Tide have its eyes fixed on Arkansas for this opening weekend.

“Tremendous challenge going to Arkansas,” Bohannon said. “Robert Moore and Christian Franklin are two really dynamic players that hit at the top of their order and really make them go. A lot of power stuff, a lot of velocity up and down their pitching staff and they play elite defense. Clearly by far the best defensive team in our league. [Baum-Walker] Stadium is a really neat place to play, Dave Van Horn is a great coach — they’ll be very well-coached.

“We believe in ourselves, we believe in each other and I’m really excited about the challenge.”