Nate Snead showed again why he is as valuable as any member of Tennessee’s top-ranked baseball team.
The junior pitcher entered Friday night’s Southeastern Conference opener against No. 7 Florida at Lindsey Nelson Stadium with the Volunteers clinging to a 4-3 lead with one out in the top of the sixth inning and with Tanner Franklin and Dylan Loy having struggled in relief of starter Liam Doyle. Snead recorded the final 11 outs and faced just 12 batters to accomplish that feat, leading the Vols to a 5-3 triumph that extended the best start in program history to 18-0.
“I just have a little fire coming out of the pen,” Snead said afterward in a news conference. “I know what I can do out of there. Florida is really good competition. They always have been. They always will be, and that was a super regional atmosphere out there.
“I was just trying to pound the strike zone as much as I could.”
Snead, a 6-foot-2, 212-pounder from South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, spent his freshman year at Wichita State before making 24 appearances for last season’s Vols, when he compiled a 3.16 earned run average for the College World Series champions. He had only thrown 13 innings through Tennessee’s first 17 games this year due to eight run-rule victories and coach Tony Vitello looking to provide other pitchers opportunities, but his stellar showing Friday lowered his season ERA to 0.44.
“He was efficient to throw 37 pitches to get the work done that he did,” Vitello said. “A lot of it was just from attacking the zone.”
Doyle struck out the side in the second inning but came up short of working five full innings due to his 105 pitches. The transfer from Ole Miss racked up six strikeouts, allowed one run on three hits, and now possesses an 0.91 ERA.
Tennessee scored three runs in the fifth inning to break a 1-1 tie, with Hunter Ensley’s double to right field scoring Jay Abernathy and Dean Curley, and with Gavin Kilen coming home on a two-out wild pitch to make it 4-1. The Gators (16-3) pulled within 4-3 in the sixth on Brody Donay’s two-run single up the middle, with the Vols going up 5-3 later that inning when Dean Curley tripled to right and scored on a Kilen sacrifice to center.
The Vols took a 1-0 lead in the second inning on Abernathy’s two-out single up the middle that scored fellow freshman Manny Marin. Florida tied it in the fourth when Blake Cyr connected on a one-out homer to left.
Saturday’s second matchup of the three-game series has been moved up from 6 to 3:30 p.m. due to the potential of inclement weather in the evening hours in Knoxville. It will start on the SEC Network+ streaming option before moving over to the SEC Network at 4.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.