Kentucky Blows Ninth-Inning Lead in 3-2 Loss to Vanderbilt; Cats Swept for First Time This Season
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — It's hard to avoid the broom in SEC play.
Having played six weekends of conference baseball heading into this weekend, No. 15 Kentucky had ducked the sweep against some of the best teams in the country. That all changed on Sunday at Hawkins Field, as more squandered opportunities killed the Wildcats against No. 5 Vanderbilt.
Two days after going 2-for-19 at the plate in a loss to the Commodores, head coach Nick Mingione's team went 2-for-18 with ducks on the pond. It still managed to enter the bottom of the ninth with a 2-1 lead, but some late bullpen implosion and a couple of hefty cuts from Vandy led to a 3-2 win for the home team and brutal heartbreak for the battered Cats.
Backup catcher Alan Espinal drove a Ryder Giles slider into the left-center gap, scoring the game-winning run. That followed a trio of hits from Parker Noland, Matthew Polk and Jonathan Vastine, all of which came off midseason All-American reliever Ryan Hagenow, who was after a six-out save. Hagenow had to leave the game after Vastine drove a come-backer off his leg, tying the game 2-2.
The loss spoiled a quality start from Zack Lee, who delivered five innings of four-hit, one-run baseball. Kentucky (30-13, 11-10 SEC) left 10 runners on base and has now lost nine of its last 12 SEC games.
"It was one of those weekends where we didn't strike out much today, we had a couple too many fly balls, but that's a good pitching staff. They threw well against us," Mingione said.
The first pitch of the game from Vandy (32-11, 16-5) left-hander Devin Futrell hit Jackson Gray in the shoulder. The Kentucky leadoff man eventually made his way to score, as a walk, fielder's choice and deep sacrifice fly from first baseman Hunter Gilliam to center field moved him over 90 feet a piece to give the Wildcats a 1-0 lead.
Lee maneuvered through his first three innings of work without giving up a run, including waiting through a short hail delay, as ice pellets hammered the turf for a few minutes. Light rain bookended the delay, but Lee stranded two runners on base, striking out Davis Diaz, then getting RJ Schreck to fly out to right field.
Vandy got to Lee in the bottom of the fourth, thanks to a costly defensive miscue. With a runner on first and two outs, Matthew Polk laced a double down the left-field line. The Wildcats had a play at the plate to get DH Chris Maldonado, who was chugging around third base, but UK left fielder Ryan Waldschmidt overthrew the cutoff man, allowing the run to score, tying the game.
Both pitchers hurled scoreless fifths, the latter of which was the final inning of the day for Lee, who notched a much-needed outing. His final line read four hits, one earned run, two walks and three strikeouts across 78 pitches — his longest outing since March 26 at Alabama.
"Gave us a chance to win that game," Mingione said of Lee. "Zack's a guy that's been pitching a long time and a guy that's had a lot of starts, so we need him to build off of that and do the same thing moving forward."
After looping weak fly balls for a majority of the middle innings, Kentucky locked in for three singles off Futrell in the top of the sixth to re-take the lead. Émilien Pitre and Gilliam led the inning off with back-to-back base knocks, putting runners on the corners with no outs.
With small ball on the mind, both Vandy and UK took timeouts before Devin Burkes stepped to the plate in a big spot. Eventually, the struggling catcher didn't lay down a bunt, instead popping out in shallow right field for the first out. Disaster then nearly struck, as the next batter Jase Felker failed to get a safety-squeeze bunt down twice, putting himself in a hole.
Luckily for the Cats, it worked out, as Felker — who entered Sunday hitless in the series — stayed back on a breaking ball and poked it into left field for a huge RBI single, his third hit of the day.
In came right-hander Mason Moore out of the bullpen for Kentucky, who proceeded to toss two scoreless innings, allowing a hit and walking a pair in some tough Commodore at-bats. He struck out Parker Noland with two on in the bottom of the sixth, then got speedy leadoff man Enrique Bradfield to hit a chopper to second to end the seventh.
The Wildcats spoiled a golden chance to increase its lead in the seventh, as they had runners on second and third with one out against Vandy reliever Sam Hliboki. Pitre stepped to the plate and hit a hard grounder at Noland at first, but the 1B had an easy throw home, as the runner Grant Smith made a poor decision to try and score. He was thrown out and Gilliam then nubbed one back to Hliboki on the mound to end the frame.
"I told our team 'it's a play here, a pitch here, an at-bat here and it's totally different. Obviously we were on the wrong end of it," Mingione said.
Kentucky again squandered what would be its final chance to add insurance runs in the ninth, as with two runners on and one out, all Waldschmidt and Pitre could muster were a pair of fly balls, the latter of which saw Polk make a diving play on to retire the side.
Hagenow pitched a scoreless eighth, but the bottom of the ninth unraveled in a hurry. Following a leadoff single from Noland, Polk ripped a double down the left-field line, putting the tying run on third base and the winning run on second with nobody out. Vastine followed with the liner that took out Hagenow, leading to the entrance of Giles, who was unable to put out the fire in a brutal late-inning defeat.
With three weeks left in the regular season, Kentucky will have the midweek off, as it returns home to prepare for another tough series against No. 3 South Carolina.
"You have 30 SEC games and they're all worth the same. We told our team that at the very beginning ... so thankful we got off to a great start," Mingione said. "There's no question that we got some work to do. But everything we want, all of our goals are still right in front of us."
Game one between the Wildcats and Gamecocks is set for 6:30 p.m. EST on Friday, May 6. The game will be televised on SEC Network+.
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