COLUMN: Kentucky Should Consider Its Losing Weekend at Tennessee a Success

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Kentucky won't call its 1-2 weekend on Rocky Top against Tennessee a success...but it should.

There are a multitude of metrics that showcase just how good the Volunteers have been when playing at Lindsey Nelson Stadium versus how bad they play when they go on the road, but the records put it simply:

Home: 32-5
Away: 2-11

It's a term more often used in the soccer world, but when a team hardly loses at home, that field or stadium becomes known as a fortress. To opposing teams this season, LNS has basically been the Death Star.

Texas A&M, Vanderbilt and Mississippi State all fell victim to sweeps when it came to Knoxville. In those nine wins, Tennessee scored eight or more runs eight times and had an average win margin of 5.33 runs.

Kentucky seemed to be well on its way to joining that club, as the first two games of the series were spearheaded by raw power from the Vols' bats, totaling 20 runs on 23 hits. It's 320 feet to either foul pole at LNS, it doesn't take a pretty poke to get a ball over the fence. UK found that out the hard way on Friday night, when the Vols whopped five balls out of the yard and put up 10 runs rather easily.

The Wildcats had every right to shrug their shoulders, point to the numbers that seemingly sway every ball hit in the park in favor of the orange and white, take their second sweep in three weekends and live to fight another day.

If you've been keeping up with Kentucky this season, though, you knew that wasn't going to happen. It feels overdone and cliché at this point to hammer home points about the Wildcats' resiliency, effort and will to win, but it continues to be the focal point of this team.

Practically punch drunk by how many blows they took across the first two games of the weekend, the Cats still managed to get up off the stool, spit some blood through the ropes and go back out to the field for more.

Instead of eating another punch, however, Kentucky landed a couple of early haymakers of its own, rocking the Vols. Hunter Gilliam smoked the first of what turned out to be five homers from the Cats, who scored five runs in the final two innings to cement its emphatic round-three win.

When you hear a coach talk about resolve and heart and focus as much as Nick Mingione has this season, it's really easy to be pessimistic and standoff-ish from a distance. Why buy into phrases that are taught in Coachspeak 101?

But then the wins start to pile up. The effort plays don't drop off on the field. The dugout energy stays high no matter what the score is. Then the game ends, and UK gets ready for the next one like nothing happened.

Sure, it's easy to buy into a message when the schedule has a bunch of wins on it instead of losses, but Kentucky truly hasn't wavered this season. That was driven home once again this weekend.

Down by seven runs late on Friday, Kentucky scored three in the top of the ninth and gave up just two runs in the final five innings. Down big once again on Saturday, Austin Strickland pumped four important innings of relief as UK cut an 8-1 deficit to 8-7 and was a base hit or two away from completing the comeback.

No matter the situation, there was never a moment where it felt as though the Cats had packed it up and moved onto the next one. Insert Sunday's win and once again, a losing weekend doesn't appear to sting so bad.

Catcher Devin Burkes has found his swing once again. He had six hits on the weekend and drove in five runs. He and Grant Smith each homered twice. Jackson Gray is no longer the best-kept secret in the SEC after five more hits and a few more Gold-Glove caliber plays.

Jase Felker has improved mightily on the defensive end at third base. Ryan Waldschmidt nearly hit a ball over the batter's eye in center while James McCoy mashed a homer and three doubles and has finally turned into the player that most thought he would be for the entire season.

Clarity is trying to shine through for the pitching staff. Zack Lee was on his way to another great outing, while there is clearly full belief that Travis Smith can handle the workload that comes with an SEC Friday night.

Tyler Bosma's struggles continued on Saturday as his reliability is starting to be called into questioned, but if Logan Martin can make a return to the mound, then that could become your new piggyback setup if needed. Darren Williams was labeled a "trump card" by Mingione after his outing on Sunday, and while the walks and HBPs have to come down, there's no questioning his ability to eat innings and compete.

There are absolutely criticisms of this Kentucky team, though. It has struggled to win away from Kentucky Proud Park down the stretch. The small ball gauntlet can't begin if you give up a ton of runs in the early innings consistently. The bullpen still carries question marks with the postseason right around the corner.

Chalk it up to the grueling SEC slate, chalk it up to inconsistencies, chalk it up to the talent level in the UK dugout not always matching that of its opponent. All have been apparent at times this season.

But then a performance like Sunday's comes around. You see why this was a team that was in the top 10 in the nation at one point not too long ago. You get why the players buy in.

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