‘You’re hanging on to every pitch.’ Kentucky stuns nation’s No. 1 team in extra innings.
The Kentucky baseball team produced its most resolute performance of the season Thursday night, defeating both an archrival and the best team in college baseball at once.
UK and No. 1 Tennessee began a three-game series Thursday night at Kentucky Proud Park, with the Wildcats emerging 3-2 winners after a grueling 13-inning game.
Catcher Alonzo Rubalcaba notched the game-winning hit for the Cats, sending a flare single down the left field foul line to score John Thrasher from third base with two outs in the bottom of the 13th to end the nearly five-hour game.
“You’re hanging on to every pitch. . . . Our guys just kept having good at-bat and good at-bat and kept putting ourselves in a position,” UK head coach Nick Mingione said. “I just knew that we would knock the door down at some point.”
It was as unlikely a win as imaginable for Kentucky, now 25-20 overall and 8-14 in Southeastern Conference games this season.
Tennessee came to Lexington as the clear standout team in college baseball this season.
The Volunteers, now 41-5 overall and 19-3 in SEC games, left 16 runners on base during Thursday’s game and were kept in check at the plate. From the third inning through the 10th, no Volunteer had a hit.
For the game, Tennessee was held to just one hit over its final 42 plate appearances.
Even more remarkable is that Tennessee was kept quiet by a Kentucky pitching staff that has been decimated by injuries.
In addition to weekend starters Cole Stupp and Darren Williams who are out for the season, Mason Hazelwood — who recently moved into a weekend starting role out of necessity — is being held out this weekend due to arm soreness.
Hazelwood’s 2021 season was cut short due to Tommy John surgery.
“We’re literally going inning by inning,” Mingione said of UK’s pitching outlook.
Four Kentucky pitchers combined to stifle the Volunteers on Thursday: Ryan Hagenow, Wyatt Hudepohl, Daniel Harper and Tyler Guilfoil.
Formerly of Lafayette High School, Guilfoil pitched a career-high six innings in Thursday’s win, tossing 63 of his 85 pitches for strikes and allowing just one hit while striking out five batters.
“You have to keep emptying the tank each inning, and then just see if you have any more left so you can go back out there,” Guilfoil, who threw mainly fastballs, said.
Prior to Rubalcaba’s late heroics, all of UK’s scoring came in the fourth inning on solo home runs by Oraj Anu and Hunter Jump.
The victory — UK’s fourth walk-off win this season — was also Kentucky’s seventh win against a top 10 opponent in 2022. Stealing a win against Tennessee could also prove critical when it comes to getting the Cats into the SEC Tournament field.
UK has eight SEC games left this season, including the final two games of the Tennessee series.
UK was to host Tennessee at Kentucky Proud Park on Friday night (6:30 p.m., SEC Network Plus) and Saturday afternoon (2 p.m., SEC Network Plus).
Cats face college baseball’s fastest pitcher
Tennessee redshirt junior right-handed pitcher Ben Joyce has become a college baseball phenomenon this season.
From Knoxville, Joyce — who previously pitched at Walters State Community College and is listed at 6-foot-5 and 225 pounds — has lit up radar guns across the country.
Attention has been focused on Joyce — who redshirted the 2021 season while rehabbing from surgery — ever since he threw a 103.5 miles per hour fastball during a late February non-conference game.
Last Sunday against Auburn, Joyce threw a 105.5 mph fastball. According to Tennessee, that pitch would have been the second-fastest pitch in MLB history.
On Thursday night in extra innings, Joyce brought his flame-throwing talent to Lexington and faced three batters.
Joyce threw 14 pitches while getting one out, appearing in both the 10th and 11th innings out of the Tennessee bullpen.
All 14 pitches were clocked at Kentucky Proud Park as traveling at least 100 mph, with the fastest pitch registering at 103.
“It’s a different kind of at-bat for sure. .. . It looked identical to what we practiced inside the (batting) cages and stuff with the hard-velocity machine,” said Jump, who was one of three UK batters to face Joyce. “His stuff’s legit. It’s no joke. It’s actually 100-plus for sure.”
Did Jump ever think Joyce was going to throw him an off-speed pitch?
“It’s hard to think like that. If you’re going to think like that you’re just going to get blown away on a fastball,” Jump said. “You just have to sit fastball and react.
“(I) took the first (pitch), just wanted to see what it was like,” Jump added. “Then immediately went into a two-strike approach: Shortened up, just focused on not muscling (or) trying to force a home run or force a super-hard hit. Just flick it, (the ball) is already going to come off hard.”
Jump nearly won the game in bottom of the 10th inning for Kentucky off Joyce, but his drive to right field that had an exit velocity of 99 mph was caught in spectacular fashion by Tennessee outfielder Jordan Beck.
During last Sunday’s outing against Auburn, Joyce threw 15 pitches that were at least 104 mph.
Joyce’s final pitch Thursday against UK was a wild pitch.
For the season, Joyce has a 0.84 ERA in 21 1/3 innings pitched across 20 appearances, with 38 strikeouts from 73 batters faced. Opponents are hitting for a .123 average against him.
