Baseball Vols sweep Bama
KNOXVILLE — A glance at the rosters showed it should have been Evan Russell who was nervous when he stepped up to the plate for Tennessee in the bottom of the sixth inning with the score tied 1-1.
The Tennessee freshman was playing in the first home Southeastern Conference series of his career, and the pitcher he was facing during the first game of a doubleheader with Alabama on Sunday afternoon — left-handed reliever Dylan Duarte — has been a trusty veteran for the Crimson Tide during his junior season.
Instead, during this pivotal moment, it was Russell who handled the situation like a veteran by drawing a bases-loaded walk to score the go-ahead run that lifted the Volunteers to a 2-1 win and helped set up a sweep of the three-game series at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
“I could tell that he was pretty nervous because of the way he pitched to Pete (Derkay) before me,” Russell said.
And besides, Russell had been in a similar situation just two nights before.
The 19-year-old designated hitter entered the weekend with 14 at-bats and three walks in his collegiate career, but it was his patient hitting approach that helped the Vols (16-9, 4-2) get past the Tide (16-9, 1-5) in the first two games before a 3-0 win in the finale completed the sweep.
Thrust into the lineup due to an injury to third baseman Wyatt Stapp, Russell ripped an RBI double in the fourth inning in Friday night’s series opener. Then he battled back from an 0-2 count with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the ninth to
draw a walk that won the game 5-4 for Tennessee.
Russell said there is nothing worse to him than swinging at a ball outside the strike zone, and his clutch walks over the weekend showed the merits of that philosophy.
After winning the seven-inning games Sunday — weather postponed Saturday’s scheduled game, leading to the doubleheader — the Vols are off to their best start in SEC play since 2008. They play at Western Carolina on Tuesday before traveling to South Carolina for a three-game series that begins Thursday night.
Starting pitching continues to be the the Vols’ strength under first-year coach Tony Vitello, but Russell made the difference on offense as the Vols swept an SEC series for the first time since 2015.
“He’s a hard worker,” Vitello said of Russell. “He’s always competing. Out of the freshmen, he probably does the best job of just keeping it simple and not getting overzealous.”
The game-winning walk Russell drew against Duarte in Sunday’s first game scored Andre Lipcius from third base. Russell termed it as “almost shocking” to have drawn a game-winning bases-loaded walk in back-to-back games.
But for the first athlete to ever earn an athletic scholarship to an SEC school from Scotts Hill High School in West Tennessee, there were no nerves.
Instead, he saw them on the face of the opponent and capitalized.
“I actually wasn’t very nervous because the coaching staff has done a very good job of making sure we work for everything we get,” Russell said. “I took my approach in the weight room and out here on the field in practice of just grinding through at-bats, grinding through practices, and doing everything that I’ve been taught to fight.
“The results were perfect. All I could ask for.”