Kentucky baseball is off to its best start since 2012. Here’s why the Cats are perfect.
The Kentucky baseball team’s first home weekend series of the season went according to plan, despite the need for more late heroics.
Despite near-freezing conditions at Kentucky Proud Park on Friday and Saturday, the Wildcats dispatched Western Michigan to win their second consecutive weekend series, before completing the sweep on Sunday.
UK improved to 7-0 on the season after last weekend’s sweep at Jacksonville State and a midweek walk-off win at home over Bellarmine.
Kentucky is now 7-0 for the first time since 2012.
Here’s how head coach Nick Mingione’s team tamed the Broncos this weekend in Lexington:
Friday: UK wins 14-3
Kentucky’s bats exploded in the series opener, scoring all of its 14 runs in the first five innings.
The Cats also scored multiple runs in each of the first five innings.
The impressive offensive output included the first home run as a UK player by senior catcher Alonzo Rubalcaba, who formerly played at Santa Barbara (Calif.) City College and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The Cats also got multi-RBI days from junior infielders Chase Estep and Ryan Ritter.
“Today we wanted to start off the weekend strong and get after them right away,” Ritter said postgame.
“We challenged our positional players: Can you make a statement early? Can you just come out on a Friday night and immediately make a statement?” Mingione said.
A scoreless streak for the UK bullpen that dated back to the first game of the season came to an end after 18 1/3 consecutive innings.
A quartet of UK freshmen all made their college debuts in the win: Infielder Michael Dallas, right-handed pitchers Colby Frieda and Mason Moore (who went to Rowan County High School) and left-handed pitcher Jackson Nove.
All three of the pitchers making their UK debuts on Friday delivered a strike with their first delivery.
Junior right-handed pitcher Cole Stupp started and got the win for UK, going five innings while striking out nine batters and allowing two runs.
“I thought Cole made his best pitches when guys were in scoring position . . . when it mattered most,” Mingione said.
Saturday: UK wins 13-12 in 12 innings
For the second time in three games, Kentucky staged a late-game comeback and recorded a walk-off win, although Saturday’s victory was far more unlikely than Wednesday’s comeback.
Kentucky trailed Western Michigan 12-4 on Saturday with just nine outs left, before erasing an eight-run deficit with two runs in the seventh inning, five runs in the eighth and one run in the ninth.
The game was won when junior infielder Jase Felker scored on a Western Michigan error following a single from Estep in the 12th inning.
The comeback was the largest in a victory under Mingione.
The eight-run comeback was the largest comeback win for UK since at least 2005.
Fifth-year player Oraj Anu led the Cats at the plate with four RBI.
It’s not often that a baseball team will win when allowing 11 walks, three hit batsmen and committing two errors, but the Cats impressively clawed their way back from a big deficit to claim the series win.
Sunday: UK wins 16-5 in eight innings
The Cats used a deluge of runs in the eighth inning to secure the weekend sweep with a mercy-rule victory.
Because of the mercy rule — UK led by 10 runs after the seventh inning — the Cats technically recorded three of their four wins last week by walk-off.
Kentucky and Western Michigan were tied at five entering the bottom of the eighth, before UK scored 11 runs in the frame, including a bases-clearing three-run double by sophomore infielder Reuben Church that gave UK the double-digit lead necessary to end the game.
Left-handed pitcher Tyler Bosma went five innings and allowed eight hits and five runs in a starting role for Kentucky, but bullpen arm and former Eastern Kentucky player Darren Williams stabilized things with three innings of shutout baseball to earn the win.
Sunday’s win featured another standout performance at the plate by second baseman Daniel Harris IV, another Eastern Kentucky transfer who previously spent four seasons with the Colonels.
Harris had three hits and scored three runs in the series finale.
For the season, Harris leads UK among regular starters in batting average (.500) and on-base percentage (.594).
Perhaps even more impressive is that Harris has struck out just twice in 26 at-bats.
“He just competes in the box,” Mingione said Friday night.
Harris is one of four UK players, along with Anu, senior first baseman Jacob Plastiak and Ritter, to record a hit in all seven games this season.
In the field, Harris has helped turn five double plays — tied for the team lead with Ritter — and sits atop the UK fielding chart with 19 assists, one ahead of Ritter’s 18.
Sunday’s win was the 150th for Mingione as UK head coach, ranking him fourth on UK’s all-time wins list.
Up next
As part of a stretch of 14 consecutive home games at Kentucky Proud Park, UK will play a pair of midweek games before hosting a marquee opponent next weekend.
Kentucky plays Western Kentucky on Tuesday and Evansville on Wednesday before hosting TCU for a weekend series.
TCU won the Big 12 Tournament last season and was a top six national seed for the 2021 NCAA Tournament. The Horned Frogs were eliminated at the regional stage.
This story was originally published February 28, 2022 at 7:39 AM.
