Garrett Staton Impacts Game in Alabama Baseball Return

The Crimson Tide got an infielder back on Tuesday night.

Alabama baseball's Garrett Staton (27) during a game against North Alabama. | Alabama Athletics

The No. 12 Alabama baseball team has hit a lot of high points in 2025, building up a 23-3 record through its first 26 regular season games. Most recently, the Crimson Tide walked off North Alabama in Huntsville on Tuesday.

Tuesday's game also had added significance in the form of infielder Garrett Staton's return. Alabama has done most of its best work without the veteran Samford transfer, who hit for power and average last year but has been limited to four games in 2025 (Tuesday was his fourth).

On Feb. 18, Staton was hit by a pitch in a game opposite Middle Tennessee. The ball broke his right index finger (his throwing hand), necessitating surgery. He was available this past weekend against Tennessee as a hitter. On Tuesday, he started at second base and collected two RBIs.

Staton hit a two-out double in the bottom of the fourth inning, plating both his runs batted in at once and drawing first blood for either side. Those runs were valuable the moment they came across and even more valuable at the end of the game, when it took a Justin Lebron single to clinch a 4-3 result.

He had been taking batting practice prior to Tuesday's midweek game. He walked in his first plate appearance against North Alabama, meaning he reached base successfully twice in a row in his first time seeing live-game pitching in more than a month.

In his final collegiate season, it already was far from ideal for Staton to miss several weeks. It would have been less ideal for Alabama (23-3) to lose him for an extended stretch of league play; as it is, he was only lost for two weekends of it, and the Crimson Tide came out of that stretch 4-2.

Staton, who began the season as Alabama's Opening Day third baseman, has started all four of his contests this spring. He is 4-for-10 at the plate with a grand slam; he accomplished that during opening weekend against Bradley. The Crimson Tide now has him as an option in its already-dangerous batting lineup ahead of this weekend's home series against No. 9 Oklahoma (and more).