Alabama Baseball Showing It Can Hang With Nation's Elite Through One Key Factor

It has been an across the board improvement from the Crimson Tide from 2024 to 2025, but there is one specific area that has made the difference so far this season.

Alabama pitcher Coulson Buchanan (12) makes a pitch in relief against South Alabama at Sewell-Thomas Stadium on March 18th, 2025. Gary Cosby Jr.-Tuscaloosa News / Gary Cosby Jr.-Tuscaloosa News

The stat sheet does not lie, even before the midpoint of the season, the Crimson Tide is a much improved baseball team from 2024 to 2025. Average, OPS, stolen bases, home runs, RBIs—there is not one key factor that Alabama is not pacing better in this year compared to Rob Vaughn's first year in Tuscaloosa.

The most important factor that has seen a drastic second-year improvement, however, is the team's collective earned run average and specifically in the bullpen.

ERA is a flawed stat in some ways. It measures the average amount of runs a pitcher surrenders per nine innings, but it does not take into account contextual factors such as hitter-friendly stadiums, level of batters faced, weather conditions, and so on. As far as non-advanced metrics go, there is not a more significant number that sticks out on a pitcher's stat sheet and judged more.

In 2024, the Crimson Tide had just two pitchers on its staff with an ERA below 4.5, Braylon Myers (2.73 in 33.0 innings) and Jason Keanty (3.37 in 10.2 innings). Not a single starter on the roster could miss bats, and most of the staff's bullpen arms constantly were putting the team in deeper holes and blowing leads.

This year, the number is entirely reversed—just two arms that have thrown more than 5.1 innings have an ERA over 3.7, and it has kept Alabama in every game they've played even when going down early as they have in both games against the number-one ranked Tennessee Volunteers this weekend.

Rob Vaughn can turn to nine different arms out of the bullpen that have pitched in multiple games at a high level this year, five of which sport an ERA of under 2.2, a luxury that did not exist last year.

Through just over 40-percent of the season, Alabama's pitching staff has shaved over two runs off of their team ERA, going from 5.69 in 2024 to 3.53 this year. This is only through five games in conference play, but it has held true against two different ranked opponents on both the road and at home.

Last night, one of the two aforementioned pitchers with an ERA over 3.7 tossed two perfect innings with four strikeouts on an efficient 24 pitches. Redshirt sophomore, Adam Morris went into last night allowing five runs in 7.2 innings, but showed he is capable of fanning one of the nation's most potent offenses.

"I don't care what his ERA is," Vaughn said after Morris's performance last night. "It's real stuff. It's 93 (mph) with sink and a really good slider. He also threw a couple of really good change-ups. Really happy with his performance tonight."

The combination of J.T. Blackwood and Morris last night threw four straight scoreless innings in relief of starter, Riley Quick, against an elite Tennessee offense that ranks second in the country in runs scored.

"The way they were swinging the bats the first two innings," Vaughn said, "If those guys don't do what they do, this game might have been over after seven."

With the gauntlet SEC schedule staring the team in the face over the next two months, the performance of the Crimson Tide bullpen will be the number one factor if the team is able to stay atop of the conference or have a fall off similar to last year, when they lost three of their last five series and did not record a win in the postseason.

So far, so good, but the season is still young, and a lot of SEC games have yet to be played.

See Also:

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No. 12 Alabama Baseball Takes First SEC Loss Against No. 1 Tennessee

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BamaCentral Instant Analysis: No. 1 Tennessee 10, No. 12 Alabama Baseball 7

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Alabama Baseball Opens No. 1 Tennessee Series With Statement Win