Resilience is a defining quality of this historic Kentucky baseball team. Throughout their quest for an SEC title, the Bat Cats often experienced what it was like to be down, but they were never out. That resiliency was manifested in a dramatic come-from-behind, extra-inning win in the opening round of the College World Series.
The resiliency of this Kentucky baseball team is being put to the test once more.
The Bat Cats were grinding through a pitchers’ duel when the you-know-what hit the fan in the sixth inning of Monday night’s College World Series battle with Texas A&M. Unlike so many times before, Kentucky dug a hole too deep to recover.
Lead-Off Walk, Misplay Open the Floodgates
Mason Moore has been excellent in postseason play, with one exception, walks. In his previous five career NCAA Tournament appearances, he allowed just 10 hits and one earned run. The last time we saw MaMo on the hump, he walked six Oregon State batters, including two RBI.
Entering the sixth inning, Moore had allowed two hits, no runs, and zero BB. Then he walked the lead-off batter. Moore wasn’t in a jam, but it was the first sign of a crack in the dam.
A&M followed it up with a double to put two runners in scoring position with no outs. The fourth hit Moore allowed of the game drove in two runs. Four straight balls later Moore’s day was done.
The damage was not done. Kentucky’s superb defense made an atypical mistake. Ali Camarillo lined a ball to James McCoy in right field. McCoy took a step forward, then quickly realized the wind wasn’t blowing this ball down. It was too late. The baseball sailed over his head, giving A&M an unexpected double.
A scoreless tie turned into a 5-0 ballgame in a matter of moments.
Kentucky Hit Everything at Texas A&M
It felt like A&M’s ace, Ryan Prager, could do no wrong, but he wasn’t whizzing pitches past Kentucky batters left and right. The Wildcats were either hitting the ball right to the A&M defense or missing a monumental moment by a hair.
Prager had a no-hitter cooking at the start of the sixth inning. Lead-off man Grant Smith battled into a full count, then smashed a hard-hit ball directly at the Texas A&M shortstop. Two innings later he smoked another ball right at the pitcher. Both should’ve been hits, instead, they were easy outs.
Even if Kentucky caught a little break, they couldn’t turn it into anything. Following Smith’s groundout in the sixth, Ryan Waldschmidt was walked to first. He made it to second thanks to a throwing error. A hard-hit ball from Devin Burkes could’ve sent two baserunners home to crack into the deficit. He did just that down the third baseline, a foot away from where the third baseman was playing to complete a routine double-play.
Two innings later, Kentucky ran into a similar situation. With a pair of baserunners, Nick Lopez blooped a ball down the rightfield line. It landed three inches the wrong way. Instead of driving in two runs, Lopez struck out looking.
Not the End of the Road
One line from Nick Mingione has stuck with me throughout this historic run. It happened after Kentucky opened the SEC Tournament with a loss to LSU. He was asked if he expected his team to be able to bounce back. He compared the season to a roller coaster ride, one this Kentucky team got comfortable on while going wire-to-wire to win the SEC.
“You gotta be able to move on, and this team has done that as good as any team I’ve ever coached and I’m confident they’ll do the same thing,” he said.
Now, they have a chance to show their resolve one more time.
We saw a snippet of it on Monday night. The Bat Cats broke up Prager’s no-hitter with back-to-back hits in the seventh, ending his day with four strikeouts. Ryan Nicholson did not let Texas A&M record an NCAA-leading 12th shutout, bombing one ball over the rightfield wall in the ninth to hit his 23rd career home run, tying a Kentucky baseball single-season record.
The road to Omaha was not easy for the Kentucky baseball program. They had to show plenty of resiliency to reach this point. We’ll soon find out just how far it will take them.
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Kentucky vs. Texas A&M Box Score
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