Nichols: How Good is Tennessee? Just Watch the Fireworks to Find Out

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Late Friday night, Tennessee’s baseball team milled about in right field as postgame fireworks exploded in front of the Tennessee River.

The announcement about the postgame show had been made earlier by the Lindsey Nelson Stadium staff, a fitting end to a beautiful evening as overcast skies gave way to glittering explosions across the dark spring sky.

The pregame was great, too, as Zakai Zeigler led the Tennessee’s men’s basketball team — with the SEC Tournament trophy in tow and Uros Plavsic in a fur coat — onto the field to deliver the pregame first pitch.

But, as great as the sight of Tennessee hoops stars in fur and fireworks over the Smoky Mountains might have been, nothing before or after the game came close to the bomb-dropping extravaganza Tennessee strung together.

Because in a a gleeful — or, for No. 19 Auburn, cruelly ironic — twist of fate, the top-ranked Vols (39-3, 18-1) used their own firework show to dismantle the Tigers (30-13, 11-8) in the seventh and eighth innings for a 17-4 series-opening win for Tennessee.

In quick summation? Six home runs in two frames. 15 runs on 16 hits in the final 19 at-bats. 100 home runs in 42 games this season, smothering last season’s 98 bombs that took a full 68 games to accumulate.

"It was a barrelfest," summarized Jorel Ortega, who lit the spark with a grand slam in the bottom of the seventh for a 7-4 Tennessee lead before he helped cushion the Vols with another bomb later for a 12-4 advantage.

“Being able to hit 100 homers at this time in the season, that shows there is a lot of talent in this lineup," said Evan Russell, who hit two shots of his own, his second one putting UT at the century mark for home runs this season. "If we continue to take the swings we are taking, we will be in good shape.”

Such good shape, in fact, that Tennessee could shatter the program record of 107, set in 1998 in 56 games, with ease.

And for Russell, the evil genius behind the Vols’ Daddy hat and cheetah print coat whose blood practically runs orange, to be the one to put Tennessee at 100?

“That’s fitting,” Tony Vitello said. “He epitomizes what we’ve got going on.”

But so does Ortega, who confirmed Russell’s sly statement about just how far the Vols’ infielder has come.

“It’s so great to see what (Ortega) is doing,” Russell said. “He wasn’t even on the travel roster last year, and I don’t know if he knows that I know this, but he would sleep here [in the batting cages] those weekends so he could get a head start on the next day.”

Such a work ethic has transformed the Vols’ roster, as players like Ortega and Lipscomb — another home run hitter on Friday night — have made the most of their turns in the limelight.

Ortega’s mindset paid new dividends on Friday, too. With the bases loaded and Tennessee trailing 4-3 in the bottom of the seventh, Auburn reliever Blake Burkhalter stepped off the mound to deal with a hamstring issue.

After pleading his case with trainers, Burkhalter retook the bump — and Ortega promptly took the next pitch deep for a grand slam and a 7-4 lead.

He stomped on the plate, and the rout was on.

Drew Gilbert and Lipscomb singled before Russell rifled his first shot of the night, and Blake Burke led off the eighth inning with another bomb before Ortega hit his second homer of the game, grinning and chest-bumping on his way to the dugout.

Then Jordan Beck doubled and Gilbert singled, setting up Lipscomb's shot to right — his 17th of the year — before Russell homered again to complete yet another roaring Tennessee comeback.

At this point, no matter how special the Vols’ bats may be, one might be fooled into thinking that Tennessee’s home run habits have become routine.

But every day, even among a program this deadly and deep, there is always something new.

Case in point: Burke’s bomb, a 435-foot moon shot that he sliced deep into the night off a 3-0 count, the ball soaring well past the light tower in right field.

“Being able to see Blake Burke hit a 3-0 pitch to the moon,” said Russell, a fifth-year senior, “is something that this program has turned to that I have never seen before. I have never seen a freshman swing at 3-0 pitches, let alone hit one like he did.”

Then again, few have seen any program like this Tennessee team, too — one that boasts lethal hitting from the first batter to the ninth, one that boasts “insane” pitching like what Vitello called an outing in which Chase Burns left Tiger runners stranded time and time again, and one that boasts a fan base that can help flip a game’s momentum at the drop of a hat.

A Short Fuse

Before Ortega and Russell combined for some late heroics to kickstart the weekend, Tennessee first had to get something going.

The Vols had mustered just two runs on three hits and trailed 4-2 entering the seventh inning.

“The cap needed to come off," Vitello said. "It came off kind of in extreme fashion there.”

Russell led off the inning with a double. By the time he sped into second base, he had felt a seismic shift in momentum.

“As soon as that ball fell over the third baseman’s head, I had a feeling the Vols were coming and we were about to come pretty hot," Russell said.

Russell’s feeling was correct — Seth Stephenson, Cortland Lawson and Christin Moore each singled, with Lawson’s hit driving in a run to make the score 4-3.

Then Ortega stepped in and delivered the magic.

But so did Tennessee’s crowd, which began rumbling as soon as Russell danced on second after his double.

 “Lindsey Nelson has become a place where it’s very difficult to win,” Russell said. “As soon as we get a little momentum, our crowd gets into it and we’ve got something cooking.”

Vitello compared the feeling in the dugout to riding a tidal wave that allows its beneficiary to soar over anything in its path.

The analogy may not come so easily later this weekend.

After all, Russell reiterated that “Auburn is a really good team,” adding that Sonny Dichiara “might be, statistically, the best hitter in the country.”

Still, after another night of domination in a season that’s been brimming with success, a wave rolling over its competition is a pretty perfect analogy to use — not just for the Vols’ fans, but for a team that just keeps lighting fireworks over the water.

Cover photo: Jake Nichols