How to Watch: Eastern Kentucky at Vanderbilt Baseball
Every sport has trap games and Vanderbilt’s baseball team is facing one Tuesday night.
With a huge weekend series coming up at home against No. 2 Arkansas, No. 14 Vanderbilt hosts an Eastern Kentucky squad that has won just four games all season. It’s easy to see how the Commodores could be looking past the Colonels and ahead to Friday’s series-opening game against the Razorbacks.
The Commodores won’t be able to take things for granted against the Colonels as the final two months of the season are going to tough enough already.
However, Vanderbilt is showing signs it’ll be able to handle the brutal SEC.
The Commodores have the fifth-highest RPI among SEC teams and ranks eighth in the nation. They also have a top-flight pitching staff that ranks 10th in the nation in team ERA (3.36), No. 1 in hits allowed per nine innings (6.13), No. 4 in strikeout-to-walk ratio (3.40 K/BB), No. 2 in strikeouts per nine innings and No. 2 in WHIP (1.02). The biggest impediment to Vanderbilt is that pretty every team ranked of it in those categories are SEC teams.
Vanderbilt’s pitching staff had an especially good week last week. The Commodores struck out 56 batters in 34 total innings pitched, including 49 strikeouts in the weekend series against Texas A&M. The offense had its moments, too. Mike Mancini hit a grand slam home run in the win against Belmont. In Saturday’s game against the Aggies, Riley Nelson hit a home run, three doubles and scored five runs and Jacob Humphrey homered twice for four RBIs in that same game.
The Commodores will look continue that trend this week, starting with Eastern Kentucky. Here’s how you can watch or listen to Tuesday night’s game:
How to Watch: Eastern Kentucky Colonels at Vanderbilt Commodores
Who: Eastern Kentucky (4-20, 3-3) at Vanderbilt (19-5, 3-2 SEC)
When: 6 p.m., Tuesday
Where: Hawkins Field, Nashville, Tenn.
TV: SECN+
Radio: Vanderbilt Athletics
Stats: StatBroadcast
Series: All-time series is tied 2-2
Last Meeting: Vanderbilt 5, Eastern Kentucky 3 (2024)
Last time out, Commodores: def. Texas A&M, 8-5
Last time out, Colonels: def. North Alabama, 6-5
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