Alabama Baseball Moves On in SEC Tournament with Win Over Kentucky

The Crimson Tide shutout the Wildcats on Tuesday night — its first shutout in SEC tournament history.

Austin Hannon | May 23, 2023

HOOVER, Ala. — Staying alive.

The Alabama Crimson Tide needed a win over No. 8 seed Kentucky to remain in Hoover and continue playing in the 2023 SEC Baseball Tournament.

It did just that.

The ninth-seeded Crimson Tide (39-17, 17-14 SEC) defeated the Wildcats 4-0 on Tuesday night at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium.

A great performance was needed from LHP Hunter Furtado — and he gave his team just that. In just his second start of the season, Furtado threw five shutout innings — allowing just two hits and two walks.

"I love having the ball, and I love starting games," Furtado said. "It's something I'm comfortable doing, I've done [it] the past two summers in the Cape. And just having [Jackson] trust me with the ball with a big game like this, I just had the confidence and knew that I was going to give the best I could out there for the team."

Away from the mound, it was all Andrew Pinckney for Alabama. Pinckney went 2-for-4 with a home run, a double and three RBIs.

He also took a run away from Kentucky (36-18, 16-15 SEC).

With a runner on third base and one out in the second inning, Pinckney caught a deep flyout in right field and threw a sizzling ball to home plate in time to keep the Wildcats off the board early on.

That play set the tone for the rest of the game. Later, Pinckney made another sliding play in foul territory for an out.

"I'm not really worried about everybody else," Pinckney said. "Just trying to be the best version of myself every day and make my teammates proud, make my coaches proud and make my parents proud. If they're happy and we win, then I'm happy."

There is truly nothing that he cannot do.

"There's a lot of star power here in Hoover," Jackson said. "But [Pinckney's] certainly one of those guys. He can do it on both sides of the ball, and you saw tonight, whether it's that slide-and-catch in foul territory, throwing a guy out at the plate — he can change the game defensively, and then obviously offensively, too."

"You just can't say enough about him as a person, either. I tell you this all the time — in the video games if you can create a player however you want to create a player, well, if you could just create a human, if you could create a human being, then I think it would be Andrew. He's just kind of perfect in pretty much every area."

As has become normal, the Crimson Tide bullpen was lights out. RHP Kade Woods and LHP Alton Davis II, both freshmen, sealed the deal with four scoreless innings.

Kentucky was never able to pick up timely hits — going 0-for-11 with runners on base and 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position.

One more win at any time this week should guarantee an NCAA regional host for Alabama — for the first time since 2006.

"We're not really worried about any adversity or anything," Pinckney said. "We're just playing no pressure, playing for the guy beside us and just taking everything a pitch at a time. When you do that and you just play as a team, good things happen, and we'll just be happy to be playing tomorrow."

The win confirms that Alabama will remain in Hoover for at least two more days. First for the Crimson Tide is a matchup with the top-seeded Florida Gators on Wednesday afternoon.

First pitch is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. CT on the SEC Network.

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