Vanderbilt Commodores

5 Key Stats From Vanderbilt's Win Over Dayton

The Commodores avenged last year's loss to the Flyers to remain perfect in midweek games this season.

Taylor Hodges

Vanderbilt players had plenty to celebrate throughout Tuesday night's 9-2 victory against Dayton.
Vanderbilt players had plenty to celebrate throughout Tuesday night's 9-2 victory against Dayton. / Vanderbilt Athletics

No. 17 Vanderbilt continued its midweek dominance Tuesday night against Dayton.

The Commodores (25-8) won their ninth midweek game of the season, 9-2, over the Flyers (17-18). It’s the first time in three seasons that Vanderbilt has gotten to this point of the season without a midweek loss. Two years ago, the Commodores lost to Central Arkansas. Last year, it was Dayton that gave the Commodores a midweek surprise.

No teams have delivered a midweek surprise this season and the Commodores avenged that loss to Dayton. Here are five important stats from Vanderbilt’s 9-2 win at Hawkins Field:

9

That’s how many bases Vanderbilt base runners stole against Dayton, a season-high for the Commodores. Mike Mancini had three steals himself, Jonathan Vastine and Jacob Humphrey each had two and Rustan Rigdan and Mac Rose each had one. It’s the most stolen bases in a single game for Vanderbilt since 2012. The Commodores are better at playing small ball than they are trying to win with big swings and home runs. Stealing bases is a big part of that and was a big reason they won Tuesday because base runners also stole third base a couple times.

13

That’s how many free passes to first base Dayton handed out. Combine those free passes with Vanderbilt’s base-stealing ability and you have the makings of a victorious recipe.

10

That’s how many runners Vanderbilt left on base. In the end, it didn’t matter but against better competition (no offense Flyers) it could matter a lot. On the flip side, Dayton had eight runners left on base.

14

That’s how many strikeouts Vanderbilt’s five pitchers combined to throw. It’s not the season-high for Vanderbilt, but it was close. One of the biggest differences between Dayton and Vanderbilt on Tuesday was each side’s strikeout to walk ratio. Dayton had six strikeouts and 10 walks allowed (plus three batters by pitches, including once with the bases loaded), while Vanderbilt had 14 strikeouts and only four walks allowed.

1

That’s how many errors were made in Tuesday’s game and the lone error came from Vanderbilt’s Brodie Johnston in the game’s first at-bat. Johnston made a good play to scoop up the grounder to third base, but his throw pulled first baseman Chris Maldonado off the bag. The Commodores still rank as one of the best fielding teams in the nation. Their .985 fielding percentage is the best in the SEC and fifth-best in the nation.

Vanderbilt will hit the road again this weekend for its first SEC series against No. 19 Oklahoma, starting with game one Friday at 7 p.m. on SEC Network.

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Taylor Hodges
TAYLOR HODGES

Taylor Hodges is a staff writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI covering all-things Vanderbilt. Taylor brings more than a decade’s worth of award-winning sports writing, photography and video experience covering every level of sports — from Little League baseball to professional sports and other sports like hunting and fishing. Taylor is fueled by his lifelong passion for sports that began the same day Kirk Gibson hit his legendary World Series walk-off home run, Arkansas beat Texas in Austin and No. 4 Notre Dame beat No. 1 Miami in the Catholics vs. Convicts game.

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