Kentucky baseball got the season started in Greensboro over the weekend. The offense looked really good, the pitching had moments, and the team started 3-0. That is the good news. The bad news is the Cats have lost a projected 1st-round draft pick, Tyler Bell, in the process.
Tyler Bell injures shoulder in opening series
Kentucky shortstop Tyler Bell had an absolutely phenomenal freshman campaign. He was an All-American who got on base safely in 54 of 56 games he played in. That is extremely rare in a conference as deep and as good as the SEC. Coming into this season, he was listed on 4 separate preseason All-American lists and the Preseason College Player of the Year watch list from D1Baseball. And now he is out indefinitely.
The Cats were rolling in the season opener, then the moment that changed the season happened in the 7th inning. When diving for a ball, Bell's shoulder got stuck in the ground, and he was removed from the game and did not play the rest of the weekend. We expect more news to trickle out today, so stay tuned.
Aside from the injury, it was a pretty stellar opening weekend for a lot of Cats.
Kentucky baseball shows off impressive offensive output
The offense showed up in a big way against the Spartans. The Cats scored a total of 34 runs across the 3 game series, as they rolled up 37 hits, and over 10 steals. Jayce Tharnish was particularly impressive with 5 steals of his own while putting up 6 hits. If he hits like that, his speed on the bases will be an issue for all teams playing Kentucky.
And with the Cats loving to pressure opponents with small ball, having a leadoff guy on base is vital. But it wasn't just the offense; the pitching really did a lot of heavy lifting until the last game of the series.
Jaxon Jelkin was special, Ben Cleaver had a good outing
Jaxon Jelkin's debut was about as good as you can hope for. The transfer from Houston showed his electric stuff with 10 punch-outs in 4 innings of work. Ben Cleaver followed it up with 7 strikeouts of his own through his 4 innings of work, leaving Nate Harris to try and close out the Spartans. His 4 innings didn't go as smoothly, but still, he only allowed 1 run in those 4 innings.
The bullpen was a huge struggle last year, and the opening 3 games didn't give Cats fans the reassurance I am sure they would have liked. Of the 11 runs given up, 10 of them were from the bullpen. 3 came from Ira Austin IV, who came over from New Orleans and had a reputation for being a good shutdown guy. Maybe this was just a bad outing, but he allowed only 13 earned runs all year in 30 innings last year. He is almost a quarter of the way there already.
All that said, 3-0 out of the opening weekend is what you want. You just hope that Tyler Bell injury is something that keeps him out a couple of weeks, and not a couple of months.
Kentucky will be back in action tomorrow with the home opener against Morehead State at 4 PM. The game will be broadcast on SEC Network+ for those who have the SEC Network as a streaming option.