Tennessee's baseball team has been able to lay low this week.
For the only time this season, the Volunteers did not have a scheduled game between their weekend series against Southeastern Conference foes. Tennessee got to relax with a 24-5 overall record and a 5-4 league mark entering Friday night's opener at Auburn, with the Vols ranked No. 4 in this week's D1 Baseball poll and fourth in the SEC East standings behind No. 17 Kentucky (8-1 in SEC), No. 6 Florida (6-3) and No. 7 Vanderbilt (6-3).
"I think rest and recovery has been key for this group," Tennessee coach Tony Vitello said Thursday in a news conference. "We've got some guys who have been playing every day from day one who really get after it in the weight room, too, so I think recovery and rest is important. It can be beneficial to hit the reset button a little bit.
"It was kind of our own little all-star break, and I think it's worked out well."
Tennessee went 1-2 at Alabama and then 2-1 each of the past two weekends at home against Ole Miss and Georgia. All three of those series went to the rubber matches, which the Vols experienced only twice out of their 10 SEC series last season.
The Vols blanked Georgia 7-0 this past Sunday behind the pitching of Zander Sechrist and Nate Snead, but that came after the Bulldogs shelled Friday starter AJ Causey and Saturday starter Drew Beam. Tennessee was walloped 16-2 last Friday in seven innings but overcame Beam's rough outing with a 16-11 triumph.
Causey, a transfer from Jacksonville State, entered last Friday with a 5-0 record and a 1.91 earned run average before giving up eight runs on seven hits and two walks.
"If you're going out there to dominate in our league, you're probably going to be frustrated," Vitello said. "You might just give up two runs, but to hold the other lineups that we see completely down I don't think is a realistic goal.
"The best goal for AJ is to be the best version of himself, which he was not last week."
Auburn is 17-11 overall and just 1-8 in SEC play, having dropped series to No. 7 Vanderbilt, No. 1 Arkansas and No. 3 Texas A&M, with its lone win coming against Arkansas. The Tigers reached the College World Series in 2019 and 2022, with last season's team winning the NCAA regional it hosted before losing to Southern Mississippi, the team Tennessee knocked out in the Hattiesburg Super Regional to advance to the College World Series.
"Their record is very deceiving, and that's part of the deal of being in this league," Vitello said. "We've experienced it in our program, and I think you've seen other teams experience it, too. It's a 30-game schedule, and the fun thing about it is that you can do a lot of things in a short amount of time.
"The stressful thing is that you can go the other way in a short amount of time as well."
The Vols are 41-97 all-time against Auburn and have lost five straight times at Plainsman Park. Tennessee's historical 29.7% success rate against the Tigers is its lowest versus any SEC member.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.