Resume Rundown: Kentucky has hit a rough patch

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kentucky-vs-louisville-baseball-game-postponed-mass-shooting — (Photo via UK Athletics)

Kentucky baseball is in the midst of the first true slump of the season. The Bats Cats returned to Kentucky Proud Park on Saturday and went 1-3 in homes over a four-day stretch against Texas A&M and Louisville. Nick Mingione’s club has now lost three consecutive SEC series with a huge road trip to Vanderbilt on deck.

Despite the rough stretch, Kentucky is still firmly an NCAA Tournament team at this point in the season. KSR’s Resume Rundown returns to see where Kentucky stands with some big regular season games remaining.

No longer a projected host

Last week, Kentucky a No. 10 overall seed in D1 Baseball’s projected field of 64. One week later, the Wildcats have fallen outside of the top 16 and are now a No. 2 seed. The latest projection has Kentucky headed to Morgantown. West Virginia is currently the No. 15 overall seed and a real threat to win the Big 12.

Here is how D1 Baseball has the national seeds entering the last weekend in April.

LSU
Wake Forest
South Carolina
Vanderbilt
Arkansas
Coastal Carolina
Florida
Virginia
Stanford
Boston College
UConn
Indiana
Dallas Baptist
Oregon
West Virginia
Duke

UK does draw one of the worst national seeds and would get an opening game with Virginia Tech to begin the NCAA Tournament. Most notably, the Bats Cats have conference series remaining the No. 3, No. 4, and No. 7 teams on the national seed line. There is still room to climb the ladder back into hosting territory, but Kentucky will need to start getting some wins against tough competition.

Kentucky falls to No. 2 in RPI

After a long run, Kentucky’s baseball team is no longer the king of the ratings percentage index (RPI). South Carolina has taken over that top spot.

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The Bat Cats are currently No. 2 in RPI at 30-10 (11-7). A strong strength of schedule (No. 1) and 10 true road wins are taking Mingione’s club a long way. However, this baseball team is 3-7 in its last 10 games with nothing but top-20 competition remaining on the schedule when you remove the mid-week game against Tennessee Tech (May 9).

Kentucky is in solid overall shape, but there is work to be done.

The weekend ahead

The Bat Cats are headed to Nashville this weekend for a three-game series against Tim Corbin’s Vanderbilt club. First pitch is on Friday night before afternoon games on Saturday and Sunday.

Vandy is 29-11 (13-5), but enters this weekend’s contest on a four-game losing streak after Tennessee swept the Commodores over the weekend with a dominating plus-22 run differential. However, Corbin’s squad has won every SEC series at home this season.

Snapping the current series losing streak will be tough for Kentucky to close out April, but any win this weekend will go a long way on the resume. Road victories are essential in the RPI formula. Kentucky needs to weather the storm before returning home to face South Carolina next weekend.