Tennessee reaches 40-win mark with victory against Tigers
Jordan Beck saw a steady helping of breaking balls in his sixth-inning at-bat Sunday.
The Tennessee baseball outfielder looked for the same in the eighth inning in a tie game with a runner on. He swung through the first one and vowed he “was not going to swing through another.”
Beck made good on those words, destroying a 2-2 breaking ball from Auburn starter Joseph Gonzalez for a two-run homer to lift Tennessee to its seventh SEC series win this season.
“He might be the most explosive hitter in college baseball,” Vols coach Tony Vitello said. “Anything crazy can happen at any moment because he is so explosive.”
No. 1 Tennessee (40-4, 19-2 SEC) topped No. 21 Auburn (31-14, 12-9) 5-3 behind Beck’s homer and clutch relief pitching from Ben Joyce.
“Showing up today was kind of the first time it had that feel of like an elimination-type game in a regional or a super regional or with your season on the line or maybe down in Hoover,” Vitello said. “Phenomenal for our guys to experience that. In a weird way, thankful for the situation.”
Tennessee matched 2000 South Carolina as the fastest SEC team to reach 40 wins since the SEC’S 1992 expansion. UT won 17-4 on Friday with a late-game offensive onslaught then blew a ninth-inning lead in an 8-5 loss Saturday.
“It is pretty good for our guys to know they are not invincible,” Vitello said. “I think the way they act sometimes, people might think that. It is just a confident group that likes to compete. But everyone needs to be reminded a bit you can be humbled really, really quick.”
Ben Joyce was the choice
Joyce walked toward the plate flexing after striking out Auburn’s Brody Moore to end the game Sunday. The Vols reliever locked down the Tigers for the final four innings, striking out six and throwing a 105.5 mph fastball.
“Any time you get to pitch on this team with these guys and knowing they trust me to go back out there really gives me a lot of confidence,” Joyce said.
Joyce entered in the sixth after Auburn tied the score 3-3 and had two runners on. The junior reliever got Cam Hill to ground into a double play and Brooks Carlson to ground out to shortstop, ending the threat in three pitches.
He allowed a seventh-inning single and walked none in his longest outing of the season.
“I ain’t the smartest fella, but I ain’t taking that guy out of the game nor are any of the other coaches,” Vitello said.
The Farragut product struck out a pair in the seventh and eighth, including Bobby Peirce, who had been on a tear against the Vols. Peirce hit a three-run homer in the ninth off Redmond Walsh on Saturday as the Vols blew a ninth-inning lead. Tennessee entered the ninth Saturday with a 5-4 lead.
“It is good for us to be behind and, honestly, it is good for us to lose just to have that feeling again,” Beck said. “Sometimes your biggest lessons are from losses. It was all good this weekend and it helped us out a lot.”
Vols are hitting homers at a record pace
Tennessee entered the weekend with 94 homers through 41 games, four shy of the 98 that the 2021 team hit in 68 games.