Alabama Baseball Makes Pitching Rotation Official for Opening Weekend

It's now official who's going to get the ball in Alabama baseball's first three games.

Alabama pitcher Zane Adams (20). (Image credit: Alabama Athletics) | Alabama Athletics

The Alabama baseball team officially opens its 2025 season on Friday at 4 p.m. CT with the first of three games against the Bradley Braves. Apart from the campaign's first lineup card, which will not be officially official until that date, there was another order of business: deciding on the weekend rotation.

Taking the mound in the first game of the season will be sophomore southpaw Zane Adams, who made last season's Freshman All-SEC team and this preseason's All-SEC Second Team. There was speculation as to whether he or junior Riley Quick would draw the opening start; Quick spent all but three innings last season on the shelf following Tommy John surgery.

Adams came into his own as last spring progressed, with his magnum opus coming on April 14 against then-No. 1 Arkansas. He spun eight shutout innings and helped lock up one of the season's most important series wins. He became part of the weekend rotation due to injuries to other members of the pitching staff and made the third-most starts on the team, finishing with a 5.37 ERA.

Many a midweek pitcher makes the foray into a team's starting rotation, whether it be because of performance, injuries or some combination of the two. Shouldering that task as a freshman in the SEC is daunting on paper. Adams did well enough at it that his status as a weekend arm entering this season was effectively unquestioned.

Quick, a big right-hander (6'6", 255 pounds) who enjoyed success as a freshman in 2023 while coming out of the bullpen, will get the ball for the series' Saturday game. He has thrown 25 collegiate innings with two wins and two saves. He's been lighting up the radar gun on his road to recovery, and the coaching staff is very high on him as a frontline SEC arm.

Sunday will feature the official Alabama debut of righty Bobby Alcock, a redshirt senior who was the Big South Pitcher of the Year in 2023. In two of the three college seasons he's played in, he has posted an earned run average below three. Injury issues kept the 23-year-old sidelined in 2024, but he was 7-3 with 10.64 strikeouts per nine innings the season before that.