Vols aiming to ‘flush it’ and ‘move on’ from nightmare Saturday
Baseball is a long season. It’s not like football season. It’s not even like basketball season. It is its own season and it’s a marathon, not a sprint. One day does not define a season or a team for that matter, but boy, Saturday was horrendous.
“We just got outplayed. There was nothing to it. I mean, we played well – like we fought all day and they just caught us at a bad time,” veteran Dalton Bargo said following Saturday’s doubleheader loss to Texas A&M. “They played really well on paper. They’re a good team but that’s baseball. Anything can happen.”
Tennessee, the top-ranked team in the country, dropped the first of Saturday’s twin-bill by a score of 9-3. The Vols followed that up with another shortcoming in the nightcap, 17-6 in eight innings of a run-rule affair.
“In baseball, you’re going to have days where you get teeth kicked in and that’s what happened today,” Bargo admitted. “Nothing to do but flush it and move on.”
Saturday’s letdown comes one day after the Vols no-hit the Aggies for the 10-0 win in the series-opener on Friday. Laim Doyle was spectacular through six innings and Dylan Loy was great in the seventh inning finale (run-rule). The two combined for the 10th no-hitter in program history, the fifth combined no-no for the Vols and the second of such this year alone.
Talk about polar opposite days as Texas A&M outscored Tennessee 26-9 over the doubleheader while out-hitting the Vols 27-19 on the day. The Aggies hammered 11 home runs in the two games, including seven in the nightcap.
“We got a lot of baseball to play this year and this is just one day and one little bump in the road,” Bargo concluded. “Every team has them and we’re just going to move on and be ready for Tuesday.”
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This weekend marked the first time the Vols have dropped back-to-back Southeastern Conference contests since losing in consecutive days at Alabama last March. It’s also the first series-loss at Lindsey Nelson Stadium since dropping two of three to Florida from April 6-8 in 2023. The run-rule loss was the first for the Vols since falling 16-2 to Georgia on March 29, 2024.
“They played better than us. We happen to play two games in one day and it was not a good day for us and it was a very good day for them,” Tennessee coach Tony Vitello said afterwards. “Good coaching staff and good players. So, they beat us today in pretty much about every facet.
“At the end of the day, they played better than we did.”
Prior to Saturday’s doubleheader loss that dropped the weekend series two games to one to the Aggies, the Vols had won nine-straight SEC home series dating back to 2023. The game was the third-most runs the program had allowed (17) in the Tony Vitello era. It’s the first time the team has allowed more than 16 runs since dropping a 22-6 decision to Florida on April 7, 2018.
“There’s a lot of information from today to process,” Vitello concluded. “You do have to have perspective. You can’t go home and bang your head up against the wall. You got to see where we’re at with this season and then hope that we’re more determined than ever this week and we make it a good week. Because it will be a tough week and the week after, that’ll be tough too.”
Tennessee returns to action on Tuesday against Alabama State before hitting the road to take on Ole Miss in Oxford next weekend.
