Report Card: Evaluating Alabama Baseball Heading into the Final Stretch

With just four weekends to play in the regular season, here's how the Crimson Tide stacks up compared to the rest of the conference.

While it hasn't exactly been the smoothest of sailings for Alabama baseball so far this season, it's hard to argue with the results that this team has produced when comparing it to other recent seasons.

With 42 games under its belt and 13 left to play, the Crimson Tide is entering the home stretch with a 25-17 overall record. While a 9-9 record in the Southeastern Conference record isn't exactly where Alabama fans would like to see it, there's no doubt that given the quality of opponents that the Crimson Tide has faced so far, most would gladly accept that record given the circumstances.

As of April 27, Alabama is ranked fourth in the SEC West Division, but is just one game shy of second-place teams LSU and Texas A&M and three games behind first-place Arkansas. With 12 SEC games left to play, there's plenty of opportunities for the Crimson Tide to increase its standing. But in a tough conference, there's always opportunities for things to get worse as well.

In terms of improvement, head coach Brad Bohannon has formed a team that has shown a lot of improvement over prior seasons. Of Alabama's nine SEC losses, three were by one run and six were by three runs or less. That alone is a stat worth recognition given the Crimson Tide's struggles against SEC opponents in recent memory.

Pitching has shown dramatic improvement over last season. Fielding is resolute. Hitting and run-production have been what Alabama has been missing most this season, but even those haven't shown much of a drop off compared to last year. All-in-all, the Crimson Tide is in a decent place heading into the final portion of the season. That being said, there are still some grades to be distributed.

Here is Alabama baseball's report card with just four weekends of the regular season left to play:

Alabama Athletics

Pitching: B+

Outside of fielding, pitching is the area that Alabama has shown the most improvement this season. As evidenced by their combined ERA of 4.11, driving in runs against the Crimson Tide has not been the easiest of things to do for opponents.

Friday starter Garrett McMillan has been the primary highlight on the mound for Alabama so far this season after transferring in from Shelton State during the offseason. So far this year, McMillan ranks 37th among all pitchers in the SEC with a 3.32 ERA, and is 10th in the conference with 61 total strikeouts.

Saturday starter Jacob McNairy is arguably the weakest of Alabama's weekend rotation, but that's saying a good bit of the trio's overall performances. With an ERA of 5.52 and 40 strikeouts, McNairy has been no slouch for the Crimson Tide. Of the three weekend starters for Alabama, McNairy has walked by far the fewest amount of batters with nine over the course of seven games started.

While he's started off the season slow, Sunday starter Grayson Hitt has only gotten better and better as the season has progressed. In fact, Hitt is second among Alabama starting pitchers with an ERA of 3.57 and is second only to McMillan with 48 strikeouts on the season. Hitt also boasts the best win-loss record of the trio with a 4-1 record through the Crimson Tide's first three-fourths of the season.

While the starting pitching has been solid for Alabama, the bullpen has been a work in progress. Reliever Brock Guffey is debatably the Crimson Tide's best man out of the bullpen with his 3.92 ERA and 19 strikeouts in 20.2 innings pitched. Hunter Hoopes has also been a very dependable arm for Alabama out of the bullpen, but with an undisclosed injury with and 'indefinite' timeline attached to it by Bohannon, Hoopes is someone that won't be turned to again anytime in the foreseeable future.

Dylan Ray has settled in to become more of a closer for Alabama in the second third of the season. With an ERA of 3.91, Ray leads all Crimson Tide bullpen pitchers with 37 strikeouts on the season. He has also given up just 17 hits over his 23 innings pitched — good enough for best on the team among active pitchers with at least 10 outings.

While Alabama's pitching continues to develop and it will have a couple of key injuries to hurdle in the coming weeks, there's no doubt that this year's team has shown significant growth in the area. While it's unfortunate that both Hoopes and Antoine Jean will be absent for the near future, the Crimson Tide is still in a solid place compared to years prior.

Alabama Athletics

Hitting: C

Let's face it: scoring runs hasn't exactly been Alabama's strongest suit this season.

In fact, the Crimson Tide ranks next to last in the SEC in total runs scored with 228 over the course of its 41 games so far, and dead last in average runs per game at 5.56. Add those stats with the 10th-best team batting average in the conference at .281 and being walked the least amount of times with 144, and a picture of Alabama's struggles at the plate begins to take shape.

The ironic part of it all is that the Crimson Tide ranks fourth in the league in hits with 395 — just two hits short of Kentucky in third place, 25 hits behind second-place Tennessee and 26 hits behind SEC leader, Auburn. However, while getting on-base hasn't really been that big of a problem for Alabama, driving in runs has: the Crimson Tide ranks next to last with 215 RBI on the year.

All of that being said, there have been a couple of bright spots on the team in terms of hitting, with the brightest of those being third baseman Zane Denton. So far this season, Denton is 16th in the SEC in home runs with 11, 21st in RBI with 35 and 27th with 46 total hits. While none of those stats will exactly blow you away, Denton has still been one of the more consistent bats for the team.

Another highlight has been outfielder Tommy Seidl, who leads the team with a .309 batting average. Fellow outfielder Andrew Pinckney also has 32 runs — good for 36th in the conference thanks to his speed and solid decision-making on the base paths.

All-in-all, run-scoring hasn't exactly been the Crimson Tide's forte this season. Fortunately, the program has been in many situations where it hasn't needed to drive in as many runs thanks to solid mound performances. That being said, when it becomes crunch time in the SEC Tournament and potentially an NCAA Regional, Alabama will have to find a way to drive in more runs.

Fielding: A

So far this season, fielding has been one of the biggest strengths for Alabama this season. With a .979 fielding percentage — good for a tie as 12th-best in Division I baseball — the Crimson Tide have been excellent at recording outs when it's expected to.

In total, Alabama has committed just 31 errors this season — tied for 23rd-best in the country. Overall, the Crimson Tide ranks 17th in total fielding.

Alabama's outfield has been remarkably strong this season, with two regular starters in Pinckney and Seidl recording a perfect fielding percentage thus far this season. While he primarily plays as designated hitter, outfielder Owen Diodati also possesses a perfect field percentage when he is used on the field.

First baseman Drew Williamson also has a fielding percentage of .990 with 290 put outs and just three errors on the season. Catcher Dominic Tamez has four errors on the season, but has thrown out nine baserunners caught stealing and has an overall fielding percentage of .989. Even second baseman Bryce Eblin — who leads the team with six errors so far this year — still has a .949 fielding percentage on the season.

The Crimson Tide might have a decent bit of faults this year, but fielding is certainly not one of them. Diving catches in the outfield and excellent plays in the infield have become somewhat routine occurrences for Alabama this year, and with its poor run production, preventing opponents from scoring with solid fielding has been a key contributor in winning several close games.

Overall: B-

As evidenced above, there's a lot of good things happening for Alabama baseball right now. While there are certainly some areas for improvement, Bohannon and his staff have done a solid job at continuing its slow-but-sure incremental improvement that the team has displayed over the last several years.

Has the progression gone as quickly or as dramatically as Crimson Tide fans would like? No, it hasn't. But one can't argue with results, and this team has shown a lot of those day-in and day-out.

In the final four weeks of the regular season, Alabama travels to play a three-game series at South Carolina before hosting No. 22 LSU for a weekend. After its final midweek game of the season at Jacksonville State, the Crimson Tide will then travel to face No. 19 Auburn for three games before returning back to Tuscaloosa to wrap up the season against No. 5 Arkansas.

With Alabama playing all three of the SEC West teams ranked ahead of them in the conference, there is still plenty of opportunities for the Crimson Tide to improve its standing heading into the SEC Tournament. All three opponents certainly present their difficulties, but it's not an impossibility for this Alabama team.

Must we be reminded that Alabama already has six wins against ranked opponents this year? Finishing second place in the SEC West isn't outside of the realm of possibility for this team. Will it happen? Probably not, but there's undoubtedly a much larger chance of it happening with this Alabama team than in years past.