Skip to main content
tennessee logo

Tennessee baseball enters postseason with fifth-best national championship odds

IMG_3593by:Grant Ramey•05/23/23•

GrantRamey

Tennessee baseball
Credit: Getty Images (Eakin Howard)

Tennessee baseball enters the postseason with the fifth best odds to win the national championship, according to Circa Sports. The Vols are +1350 in the Circa odds, trailing only Wake Forest (+375), LSU (+900), Arkansas (+900) and Florida (+950).

South Carolina (+1700), Stanford (+1800) and Vanderbilt (+2000) were the three teams with the next highest odds behind Tennessee. 

Tennessee (38-18, 16-14 SEC), the No. 7 seed in the SEC Tournament, faces No. 10-seed Texas A&M (32-23, 14-16) Tuesday afternoon at Hoover Met Stadium in Hoover, Ala. The Vols and Aggies are scheduled to start 30 minutes after the completion of No. 6 South Carolina’s game against No. 11 Georgia, which starts at 10:30 a.m. ET. 

Vols to start junior RHP Seth Halvorsen against Texas A&M

On Monday night Tennessee announced that redshirt junior right-hander Seth Halvorsen will get the start against Texas A&M on Tuesday afternoon. Halvorsen, a former Friday night starter at Missouri before transferring to Tennessee, has a 2-2 record this season with a 3.96 earned run average. He’ll face Texas A&M left-hander Troy Wanting (2-3, 5.98 ERA).

Tuesday’s game can be seen on SEC Network with Dave Neal and Ben McDonald. The game can be streamed on mobile devices through WatchESPN on the ESPN app or ESPN.com/watch. John Wilkerson will have the radio play-by-play on The Vol Network’s local affiliates across the state of Tennessee. The audio can also be streamed for free at UTSports.com or on the Tennessee Athletics Gameday App. 

The winner between Tennessee-Texas A&M advances to face No. 2-seed Arkansas midday on Wednesday. The loser in eliminated in the first round’s single-elimination format. The tournament moves to double elimination beginning with Wednesday’s games.

The Vols swept the Aggies at Lindsey Nelson Stadium in Knoxville March 24-26, winning 10-4, 8-7 and 9-6.

Tennessee won 11 of its final 15 SEC games in the regular season

Tennessee made a run to the College World Series in 2021 and won a program-record 57 games last season, earning the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.

The Vols started the SEC schedule this season by getting swept at Missouri. They bounced back with a home sweep of Texas A&M, but then lost two of three against LSU, Florida and Arkansas. 

Tennessee won four of its final five SEC series in the regular season, dating back to a sweep of Vanderbilt April 21-23 in Knoxville. The Vols swept Mississippi State the following weekend, then dropped two of three at Georgia. They bounced back by taking two of three from Kentucky and South Carolina, going 11-4 over the final 15 SEC games on schedule, after starting 5-10.

Tennessee wrapped up the regular-season schedule with a series win at South Carolina over the weekend. The Vols beat the Gamecocks 5-0 on Friday, dropped the opening game of a doubleheader 6-1 on Saturday then won 12-1 in the second game.

You may also like