Kentucky baseball wins first SEC series, loses a starting pitcher for rest of season
Before Saturday’s game between the Kentucky baseball team and No. 14 Georgia, injured graduate student outfielder Oraj Anu led the Wildcats through the team’s pregame speech.
Anu called things out for what they were. He told his teammates they were playing too stiff, that they needed to loosen up in order for the Cats to finally enter the win column in Southeastern Conference play.
“It looked like some guys were pressing, not being themselves,” said Adam Fogel, another graduate student outfielder, when recalling the meeting.
Did UK head coach Nick Mingione think some players on the team were pressing?
“I feel like we’ve been pressing since Arkansas weekend … it’s not everybody, but there are certain guys that were doing that. When you care that’s what you do,” Mingione said. “Sometimes when you get injured like Oraj has, you have the unique opportunity to just watch … now that he’s camped out there at the batting cage and he’s been able to walk around, you hear and you see some things that maybe you wouldn’t have.”
Whatever Anu said, it clearly clicked, as Kentucky scored 10 runs on Saturday and 18 more on Sunday to claim a significant home series win over the top-15 ranked Bulldogs.
It wasn’t all good news for the Wildcats this weekend, though, as junior pitcher and Friday night starter Cole Stupp was ruled out for the remainder of the season.
Here’s a look at the weekend that was for Kentucky baseball.
Friday: Georgia wins 4-2
Kentucky dropped its fourth straight SEC game to begin league play in the series opener.
UK’s pitching was good enough to win — the Cats struck out 12 batters and held Georgia to 1-for-13 at the plate with runners in scoring position — but the visiting pitching was even better.
Georgia junior Jonathan Cannon lived up to his reputation as one of the best pitching prospects in the nation, going seven innings and only allowing one run, which ended a 17 1/3-inning scoreless streak.
Both UK runs came courtesy of graduate student infielder Daniel Harris IV via an RBI groundout off Cannon and later an RBI double.
Junior infielder Chase Estep’s 22-game reached base safely streak ended.
UK junior Cole Stupp started for the Cats and allowed three runs in 5 1/3 innings while issuing a career-high four walks, and it will be the last time Stupp pitches for Kentucky this season.
Prior to Sunday’s series-deciding game, the Kentucky baseball program announced Stupp would be out for the remainder of the 2022 season.
Stupp left Friday’s game with a forearm issue, one that is serious enough to end his junior season early.
“He felt something in his forearm on the outside of his arm,” Mingione told reporters after Friday’s game.
Stupp will finish the 2022 season with six starts, 25 2/3 innings pitched, a 2-2 record, a 6.31 ERA and a 2.03 WHIP.
Saturday: UK wins 10-8
Despite falling behind 6-1 in the second inning, offense powered UK to its first SEC win of the season, 10-8, over Georgia and forced the rubber match on Sunday afternoon.
Seven Wildcats recorded a hit in the game — led by a career-best three-hit day by Fogel — and the Cats scored in each of the first five innings.
“Our mindset is just chip away,” Fogel, who transferred to UK after five seasons at Hawaii, said postgame. “That was kind of our thing, slowly but surely, and it worked out.”
Former Eastern Kentucky pitcher and graduate transfer Darren Williams made his first start for Kentucky. He pitched four innings and allowed six runs, all in the second inning, but none of them were earned.
He also walked four batters after entering the game having walked just five in 18 2/3 innings pitched.
“He gave us a chance to win that game and to his credit he just kept fighting and competing,” Mingione said. “He just kept shoving the ball in there. When he’s on the mound, our team is really confident.”
Williams’ move to the starting rotation might become a season-long switch following the announcement that Stupp would miss the rest of the season.
Another transfer, junior Tyler Guilfoil — who went to Lafayette High School in Lexington — entered the game in the ninth inning to record the save after a sterling four-inning bullpen outing by Sean Harney.
One of Harney’s most important outs came in the top of the eighth. Having already allowed two runs in the frame, Harney struck out Georgia’s Garrett Spikes with two outs and the bases loaded to keep the Cats in front.
Guilfoil’s save was his second of the season, while Harney earned the win.
Sunday: UK wins 18-5
Kentucky’s bats got right to work in the series-deciding game Sunday against Georgia, and the Wildcats never looked back.
Senior catcher Alonzo Rubalcaba hit a grand slam in the first inning, junior infielder Chase Estep had a two-run homer in the fourth and junior shortstop Ryan Ritter hit a bases-clearing triple in the sixth to highlight a banner offensive day for UK.
The 18 runs scored by Kentucky were the team’s most in SEC play this season — surpassing the 10 runs scored Saturday — and it was the most runs scored in a league game by UK since scoring 19 at South Carolina in April 2017.
Junior infielder Jase Felker — who played high school baseball at Caldwell County — recorded five hits in the win, marking the first five-hit performance by a UK player since Riley Mahan in April 2017.
The series win means Kentucky has won a pair of series against top-15 opponents in the month of March, as UK also took two of three games from TCU at Kentucky Proud Park.
Tyler Bosma pitched a career-best six scoreless innings in a starting role for the Cats on Sunday.
The Kentucky baseball program now has 1,999 all-time victories. Of those wins, 160 have come under Mingione.
Up next
Kentucky (17-8 overall and 2-4 in SEC play) has a midweek home game before continuing SEC play next weekend, also in Lexington. The Cats host Eastern Kentucky at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Kentucky Proud Park, then play Ole Miss in a three-game series from Friday through Sunday at the same venue.
UK is 3-1 this season against in-state opponents.
