Tennessee’s big bats are showing up just about everywhere these days.
The No. 20 Volunteers continued their late-season offensive surge Tuesday night, racking up 15 hits during an 11-6 downing of South Carolina in a Southeastern Conference first-round pairing in Hoover, Alabama. Tuesday’s outburst followed Tennessee’s 25-run showing in a series triumph over Texas in Knoxville from May 8-10 and its 27-run performance last weekend in a series victory at Oklahoma.
“We’ve been putting together good at-bats, and everybody was competing up there,” Tennessee junior center fielder Garrett Wright said afterward on the SEC Network. “We were taking ‘A’ swings early, and we were fighting when we got deeper into counts. I feel like we did a good job with that.”
Tennessee, the 10th seed in this week’s 16-team SEC field, improved to 38-19 overall and advanced to play seventh-seeded Arkansas (36-19) on Wednesday afternoon, with the pairing scheduled for 5:30 Eastern on the SEC Network. The 15th-seeded Gamecocks ended their disappointing season with a 22-35 record.
“At the end of the day, we’ve got another baseball game,” Wright said. “We’ve got to come out here again and play our game. We saw tonight what we’re capable of.”
Wright went 4-for-5 with three RBIs for the Vols to improve his season average to .345, while Henry Ford went 3-for-4 with two RBIs to up his average to .301. Each had a home run in the eighth inning after the Gamecocks had pulled within 9-6.
“This is just such a cool event here at night,” Tennessee first-year coach Josh Elander said after the Vols won their SEC tourney opener for the fifth time in six seasons. “This is a big event that we all look forward to each year. I know our guys get excited to play in a venue like this.”
Tennessee used a six-run third inning to take control, and it started with Blake Grimmer’s single to right field, Ford’s single to left and Trent Grindlinger’s RBI single to right that pulled the Vols even at 3-3. After Levi Clark and Blaine Brown struck out, Manny Marin singled to right to score Ford and put Tennessee ahead to stay.
Nate Eisfelder, who replaced an injured Reese Chapman in right field, doubled to right-center to score Grindlinger and Marin to extend Tennessee’s advantage to 6-3. Jay Abernathy reached on a fielding error, and Wright singled to right to bring in Eisfelder and Abernathy to cap the inning.
At the start of the third inning, Elander was interviewed by the SEC Network and provided an update on Chapman, who was injured during Monday’s practice.
“It will be a day-to-day deal,” Elander said. “It was kind of a freak accident yesterday. He just kind of got hit by a ball as he was coming in from the outfield. The people here at the SEC tournament and at UAB have been phenomenal, and we’re actually going to get him back to Knoxville to get him further evaluated.
“There is some cautious optimism that we could see him sooner rather than later.”
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Tennessee led off its half of the first inning with singles by Wright and Grimmer, with Wright scoring on Ford’s sacrifice fly to left field and with Grimmer coming home on Clark’s two-out single up the middle. That 2-0 lead by the Vols lasted until the third inning, when a two-run triple by Patrick Evans helped South Carolina grab a 3-2 lead.
Cam Appenzeller started for Tennessee and worked five complete innings, allowing three runs on six hits and three walks while striking out five.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.