Kentucky Baseball Falls to No. 15 in College Baseball Rankings

DanielHagerKSR

kentucky-baseball-falls-no-15-in-college-baseball-rankings — Photo by Morgan Simmons | UK Athletics

After a 13-2 victory over Xavier on Tuesday and a weekend series loss to Texas A&M, the Bat ‘Cats fell three spots to No. 15 in this week’s D1Baseball and Baseball America Top 25 Rankings.

After an off week for the top teams in the country, a series victory over the Aggies could have propelled the ‘Cats back into the Top 10. But Saturday’s ninth-inning blown lead was brutal.

Sunday’s bounce-back 8-1 victory was crucial for Kentucky with a rough stretch approaching. From now until the end of the regular season (May 20), five of the six teams scheduled to face the ‘Cats are ranked in the Top 25 (No. 3 South Carolina, No. 4 Florida, No. 5 Vanderbilt, No. 21 Louisville, and No. 24 Tennessee). The one outlier, Tennessee Tech, knocked off the Volunteers 12-5 last Tuesday in Knoxville. No easy handouts from here on out.

🆕 D1Baseball Top 25 Rankings (Presented By @NettingPros)@WVUBaseball had yet another huge weekend and is one of four teams that entered the very latest D1Baseball Top 25 Rankings. https://t.co/9kBTGGJjyN
— D1Baseball (@d1baseball) April 24, 2023

Émilien Pitre continued to build on his great season in the weekend series against A&M, racking up three hits in Saturday’s game two loss. Keeping his bat hot will be an integral part of Kentucky’s success. The ‘Cats must work on their control issues, as three different Wildcat pitchers finished with five walks this weekend. It’s hard to tell whether that chalks up to a tight strike zone or control issues, but we’ll find out on Tuesday. Free bases at this point in the season are detrimental.

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Kentucky’s Tuesday opponent, the Louisville Cardinals, will enter Tuesday’s matchup reeling. The Cards got swept by Duke over the weekend, all one-run games. The ‘Cards have lost six of their last eight games and a win over the RPI’s second-ranked team in the country would be huge to bolster their NCAA Tournament resume. First pitch for Tuesday’s latest edition of ‘Cats/Cards is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. EST and will be broadcast on the SEC Network.

Check out KSR’s latest edition of Rapid Reactions below, featuring myself and Steven Peake’s reactions to Kentucky baseball’s surprising season and Sunday’s 8-1 must-have win over Texas A&M.