Quick or Fay: Who will Start Alabama Baseball's Friday Game Against Miami?

Questions were present last Wednesday at the SEC Baseball Tournament when Alabama's coaching staff kept right-handed starting pitcher Riley Quick sidelined for an elimination game against Tennessee that the Crimson Tide lost 15-10.

The Trussville, Ala., native went under the knife for Tommy John surgery in February 2024, and the future MLB Draft selection made a fast comeback but has largely been protected from Herculean pitch tallies by his coaches.

"I think a lot of that goes into kind of pitch count. A lot of that goes into workload," Crimson Tide head coach Rob Vaughn said after the game. "Riley is still coming off a TJ, and he's a max effort arm."

Quick (8-2, 3.54 ERA) has been Alabama's best starting pitcher in the 2025 season. The redshirt sophomore has consistently been throwing from the No. 2 spot in the rotation. For Friday's Hattiesburg Regional opener against Miami (Fla.), that could change.

"We need Riley as fresh as he can be this upcoming Friday," Vaughn said last Wednesday.

The high-velo righty has not pitched in a game since May 16 at Florida. The implication of Vaughn's statement is that Quick may start the Miami game (2 p.m. CT, ESPN2) over fellow right-hander Tyler Fay.

Fay did pitch in the SEC Tournament. He had a six-strikeout career day in the first round. He has been going first in the weekend rotation since a mid-April series at LSU. In his conference tournament outing against Missouri, his seventh start of the campaign, Fay spun six innings of one-run baseball.

Either player is a viable pick for the job at hand on Friday, though no starter has yet been announced. Both tall, they profile differently; Fay (1-2, 4.71 ERA) is more of a ground-ball pitcher than Quick is, while the latter has the edge on the radar gun.

The goal in an NCAA Tournament regional is to avoid the losers' bracket at all. The journey to supers is immensely more complicated if a club finds itself there at any point ahead of a regional final. Whether Vaughn gives the ball to Quick or Fay against the Hurricanes, the objective is the same.

Fay and Quick are each fresh, with more than a week's rest, as is the entire pitching staff. If it can be said that there are any advantages to a shorter stay in Hoover, foremost among those would be a comparative lack of strain on a team's hurlers when regional play rolls around.

If Alabama (41-16), the No. 2 seed in the regional, defeats No. 3-seed Miami (31-24), it will next face whichever side wins between No. 16 national seed Southern Miss and Ivy League champion Columbia Saturday. Should the Hurricanes topple the Crimson Tide, Alabama would instead play against the loser of Friday's second game on Saturday.

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