While the basketball Cats were in Nashville getting beat Florida for the third time, Kentucky baseball was getting ready for its SEC opener in Lexington against Alabama. The Tide struck first, but it was a Kentucky baseball kind of night in a big SEC win.
Jaxon Jelkin struggles, but the bullpen shows up
Jaxon Jelkin struggled for the second consecutive outing, but he was just good enough. Kentucky's Friday starter went 5.1 innings, gave up 6 hits, 4 runs, and had 5 K's. The bullpen had 3.2 innings of scoreless relief.
In a wild stat, Kentucky threw a total of 155 pitches to Alabama's 102, even though Alabama's pitchers had more strikeouts, 9-7.
Kentucky baseball's timely hitting and sure up win
Under Nick Mingione, the Cats will always try to put pressure on opponents with steals, double steals, bunts, and just whatever they can do to try to make the opposing team crumble. Alabama today ended up with 2 errors, with 1 of them directly leading to a run off a Tyler Cerny fly ball. And Luke Lawrence had a steal.
The Cats had just 9 hits, but 2 of those were home runs with Ethan Hindle and Ryan Schwatz both hitting 2-run home runs in back-to-back innings (1st and 2nd). That gave the Cats a stranglehold on the early portion of the game, and it was all Kentucky needed to close out the win.
Series win is crucial to maintain momentum
In college baseball, your goal is to go 2-1 at home and 1-2 on the road. Any better than that and you have done better than you should. In a league like the SEC, where nearly every team is great (11 in the top 25, 6 in the top 10), winning your home series all season long is paramount.
The Cats are halfway there this weekend and will look to get the series win tomorrow when the first pitch is set up for 2 PM on SEC Network+.