Poor Performance in Series Openers Changing Trajectory of Alabama Baseball's Season

Some of the Crimson Tide's worst performances of the season have been in SEC openers.

Alabama baseball players during a mound visit. | Alabama Athletics

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.— Alabama baseball has four run-rule defeats on its record for the 2025 season, and those losses have one thing in common. All four such outcomes, which come by rule in the SEC when one team leads by 10 runs or more after the seventh inning or later, are in series openers.

That trend continued once more on Friday night; the Crimson Tide (37-13, 13-12 SEC) was destroyed 19-3 in seven innings by No. 6 Georgia during the first game of a scheduled doubleheader. Alabama led 3-1 entering the fifth inning. The Bulldogs scored eight runs in the fifth and seven in the seventh.

"We've actually had some good starts," head coach Rob Vaughn said. "We've just faltered in the middle-to-late innings the last couple Fridays, is what's gotten us."

The first loss the Crimson Tide experienced in this fashion was at Auburn more than a month ago. On April 4, the Tigers tagged starting pitcher Zane Adams early and ultimately scored just enough runs for the mercy rule to kick in, prevailing 10-0 in seven frames.

It happened again seven days later in Tuscaloosa against unranked Mississippi State. That game went eight innings but still ended early. Another eight-inning blowout was a 12-2 loss at Vanderbilt on May 2. That contest was scoreless through five innings.

Right-handed sophomore Tyler Fay started the Vanderbilt game and Friday's loss against Georgia. Vaughn absolved Fay, who did not begin this season as a starter, of responsibility for those final run differentials going off the rails.

"The same thing happened at Vandy," Vaughn said Friday. "[He] was throwing the ball pretty good, we have a rough sixth [inning], and then here they come. It's just pitch execution, just ability to finish hitters, ability to stay ahead. That group [Georgia] is really dangerous in that dugout over there."

Fay has been significantly better in a starter's role than out of the bullpen this spring. One of the things teams want from starting pitchers is for them to be efficient and give their offenses a chance to be in games; save for two tough innings in the last two weekends, Fay has done that.

"Tyler Fay is not the reason we've scuffled on a couple of these Friday nights," Vaughn said.

Apart from the win-loss implications, which are sizable given that losing series openers over a prolonged stretch creates the situation of perpetually having to play from behind, standout pitcher Riley Quick has also had to shoulder taking the ball after a loss a lot.

Adams started the first two SEC run-rule losses, while the latter two starts in those situations have fallen on Fay. Quick has pitched second on weekends since the campaign began.

Whomever is pitching, the ramifications of dropping an opener have shown in Alabama's overall series results. If the Crimson Tide drops the set to Georgia at home, it will have lost five of its last six conference series. The only series win in that stretch featured a 7-5 win over Missouri in game one.

That means, even though the team has put itself in the position of having to beat its opponents twice in a row to come out on the right side of SEC weekends, fulfilling that hasn't yet come to pass. All three of Alabama's series wins in league play have included game one victories.

There is still a chance for this weekend to be the exception. Alabama was leading 6-2 with one out in the top of the fifth on Friday night when the action was suspended due to rain. If the Crimson Tide finishes that game out and then wins the next, it will be the first series win of the year to feature back-to-back successes after it was beaten in the opening act.