Alan Espinal leaves game against High Point with apparent leg injury

The injuries continue to pile up for Vanderbilt in the NCAA Baseball Tournament. Commodores catcher Alan Espinal pulled up running to third base in the top of the first inning of Saturday’s Clemson Regional and left as a result.

Espinal was trying to advance on a ground ball that got away from the High Point third baseman and helped Vanderbilt score its first run. He was favoring his left leg as he got closer to the base and called timeout to run it off. He stayed in for the final out, but when the Commodores came out in the bottom of the first, Jack Bulger was catching for starter Bryce Cunningham.

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Espinal has stared all 59 games this year for Vanderbilt and entered Saturday’s game with a team-high 13 home runs. He also brought in a .289 batting average and his 49 RBI are second on the team only to RJ Austin.

Alan Espinal’s injury is the latest for Vanderbilt, which is facing elimination after dropping Friday’s game against Coastal Carolina. Jonathan Vastine left Friday’s game due to what was described as a “player delay” at the time, but later confirmed to be an illness. He was not the lineup on Saturday.

Vanderbilt is looking to not only keep its season alive in the double-elimination format of the Regional round, but also continue the success of the SEC this year. The conference received a record 11 bids to the NCAA Tournament after an impressive regular season, and VU coach Tim Corbin said he thinks the league is set up for plenty of success on the road to Omaha.

“I think they will all handle themselves well. I say that because — I don’t know the rest of the country real well, so it would be unfair of me to speak,” Corbin said. “But I think what these kids do — whether it’s Tennessee or LSU or any of these kids, they play in hot-temperature situations.

“I mean, there’s a lot on their shoulders on a weekly basis, and it’s very important to the people around them, which kind of creates that little bubble of pressure that — or you can call it whatever you want, bubble of heat that occurs around them.”

A win would mean Vanderbilt would play again on Sunday afternoon against the loser of the Clemson vs. Coastal Carolina game, which is coming up after VU’s game against High Point.