Tennessee’s hopes of throwing a second consecutive combined no-hitter were lost Saturday night when St. Bonaventure leadoff hitter Jayce Tharnish took a 2-1 pitch from Marcus Phillips and sent it over Lindsey Nelson Stadium’s right-field wall.
Phillips responded with his deepest outing of the season.
The imposing 6-foot-4, 246-pounder from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, worked nearly six full innings and allowed just two more hits the rest of the way in an 11-1, seven-inning crushing of the Bonnies before a crowd of 6,007. The top-ranked Volunteers improved to 15-0, matching the 2019 team for the best start in program history.
“I didn’t adjust a thing,” Phillips said. “I was just throwing the ball over the plate, and he got me. It was just a middle fastball, and I didn’t execute it well, but I didn’t adjust anything. I was still competing, and I was still attacking.
“The last thing you want to do after a homer is walk somebody or get behind in the count, so I just took a deep breath, reset and got back in there.”
Phillips earned his first decision of the season and has a 1.46 ERA through four Saturday starts. He was replaced by Nate Snead, who needed all of 10 pitches to record what would be the final four outs.
“I saw a lot of composure and a really good presence,” Tennessee coach Tony Vitello said of Phillips. “At times last year, we were overly critical of him in that category, and I think that was because we envisioned what he could become. I think he’s in the process of becoming that.”
Tennessee walked off the game on a Manny Marin grand slam to left, which scored Jay Abernathy, Reese Chapman and Cannon Peebles. The Vols already have eight grand slams through 15 games this year after setting a single-season program standard last spring with 12 in 73 contests.
Manny, the freshman third baseman, went 3-for-4 with the four RBIs to raise his season average to 467.
“The first pitch I was taking,” Marin said of his slam. “It was a fastball, and I had a feeling the curveball was coming.”
Tennessee took a 2-1 lead in the second inning on Dalton Bargo’s two-out single to right that scored Chapman and Marin, and the Vols made it 3-1 in the third when Andrew Fischer’s double to left-center brought home Hunter Ensley, who had reached on a one-out walk.
The Vols increased their advantage to 5-1 in the fifth on sacrifice flies by Ensley and Fischer and got up 7-1 in the sixth on Dean Curley’s two-run homer to right.
Tennessee will seek its first 16-0 start Sunday afternoon at 1 in the series finale against the Bonnies (7-6), with Vitello making a game day announcement on the starter.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.