Nine Ranked Teams Lose on Tuesday; Midweek Madness Yet to Catch Kentucky

The Bat Cats are one of two remaining SEC teams to hold a perfect midweek record.

Losing the occasional midweek game is often forgivable, considering the length of a college baseball season and the grueling, nonstop nature that accompanies it. 

Still, it doesn't make it look any better.

Kentucky and head coach Nick Mingione know this far too well, as dropping five midweek games in 2022 was one of the bigger nails in the coffin that kept the Wildcats on the outside looking in when the NCAA Tournament bracket was revealed at the end of last May. 

It's the most midweek losses UK has suffered in a season since Mingione was hired before the 2017 campaign:

• 2017: 11-3 
• 2018: 9-3 
• 2019: 10-3 
• 2020: 5-0 (COVID)
• 2021: 10-2 
• 2022: 7-5

Entering the 2023 season, Mingione made it clear that he was tired of coming up short: 

"At the end of the year, two of the last three years we've been one or two wins away. Quite frankly, i'm tired of that. Let's be five or six games up like we were in '17 and we're sitting here talking about 'are we gonna be a national seed or are we just going to be a regional seed?' That's the goal." 

The first step in making sure that that goal is reached is taking care of business on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Following No. 13 UK's 13-2 win over Xavier on Tuesday, it is now 9-0 in midweek games this season and is winning those games by an average of 7.1 runs. 

It's rout of Xavier could've easily been a classic trap-game defeat, as Kentucky was coming off of a hard-fought series on the road against No. 1 LSU. Instead, the Musketeers had just three hits and the Bat Cats scored in six different innings. It's yet another testament to the focus that Mingione's team has had the entire season. 

Following the win, he reflected on a great video session that the team had on Monday, shedding any worry of a letdown after losing two of three in Baton Rouge over the weekend. 

"Walking into that, I expected nothing less, but the guys were locked in," Mingione said. "We spent about 30 to 35 to 40 minutes watching video and just we talked about execution ... let's focus on that and nothing else. We did a good job of it."

Kentucky has continued to execute against its midweek opponents. It's scored at least six runs in all nine of those games and has allowed more than three runs just twice. While an 11-run win over Xavier only means so much, it looks better than normal when comparing it to some of the other scores around the SEC and country on Tuesday night. 

Nine teams ranked in the Top 25 lost, two of which were top-five teams in the SEC. Another pair of conference foes fell as well: 

SEC

• Louisiana 8, No. 1 LSU 5
• Indiana State 10, No. 4 Vanderbilt 2
• Tennessee Tech 12, Tennessee 5 
• UAB 4, Alabama 3

Top 25

• Sacramento State 15, No. 9 Stanford 13
• Indiana 7, No. 12 Louisville 3
• Northeastern 12, No. 15 UConn 3
• UC Irvine 12, No. 22 UCLA 4
• Portland 10, No. 23 Oregon 9
• Louisiana Tech 3, No. 24 Southern Miss 1
• Texas State 5, No. 24 UTSA 3

The Wildcats swept Indiana State earlier this year and also run-ruled Indiana when it came to Kentucky Proud Park. Entering the sixth weekend of conference play, Kentucky and Missouri are now the only two SEC schools that have not lost a midweek game. 

"We treat every game like it's the most important game on the schedule," UK first baseman Hunter Gilliam told Wildcats Today postgame.

While cliché, it remains true. The Bat Cats have just two scheduled midweek games left in the 2023 regular season, versus Louisville on April 25 and Tennessee Tech on May 9. There is still no word on whether the postponed game at Louisville (originally scheduled for April 11) will be made up. The Cardinals own six of Mingione's 16 career midweek defeats at UK.

Kentucky returns to the diamond this weekend for a three-game series against Texas A&M at Kentucky Proud Park. First pitch for game one on Friday, April 21 is set for 6:30 p.m. EST and will air on SEC Network+.

Stock Report: Kentucky earning national respect after LSU series

More on the LSU series HERE.

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