Vanderbilt Baseball Notebook: Holcomb Ties Home Run Lead, The Regulars, Barton Update

NASHVILLE—This time a year ago, Braden Holcomb was fighting to avoid the benching that was inevitably coming at the beginning of SEC play, now he’s tied at the top of the college baseball home run leaderboard.

Holcomb hit two on Tuesday night as Vanderbilt made it to a _-_ win over Evansville via the run rule without breaking a sweat. The indication throughout the offseason was that Holcomb was improved, but home run leader through a few weeks likely wasn’t on the bingo card.

Here we are, though.

“I think he’s in a good place right now,” Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin said. “He’s certainly in a good place offensively, he’s doing good things for us defensively and his health is good. I think Braden is in a good spot.”

Holcomb’s four home runs prior to Tuesday night came against Texas Tech, Marist and Eastern Michigan. The Vanderbilt slugger has also embraced a role in center field while untapping his power at a different level than in his previous first two seasons.

The fit appears to be more natural than his linebacker-like frame would indicate.

Holcomb won the SEC Player of the Week for his performance in the Commodores’ three-game sweep against Marist and a two-game sweep of Eastern Michigan. Holcomb’s bat was red hot all week as he went 11-for-19 at the plate (.579 batting average) and hit three home runs.

That was the story of the preseason, though. The story these days is that Holcomb appears to be a significantly more difficult out than he was previously. The indications are that he’s more consistent, which Vanderbilt hitting coach Jason Esposito pinpointed as an area of potential improvement and that he’s a more difficult out as a whole.

If that’s true, Vanderbilt is a significantly more dangerous team.

Lineup decisions

Looking out at that Vanderbilt baseball team on Tuesday night as it took on Evansville, that may be what it’s like to look at this group the rest of the way–for the most part.

For as much talk of flexibility and potential lineup variance as there was surrounding this Vanderbilt team, it appears to have a lot of this settled. Never rule anything out with Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin and his love for the long game, but the trends here indicate that he may have made some decisions.

The obvious ones aren’t all that up for interpretation here. Brodie Johnston is going to be the third baseman here. Ryker Waite is going to be the shortstop. Holcomb is always going to be somewhere in the lineup. Colin Barczi is the catcher on weekends. Logan Johnstone is going to be in right field.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

Tommy Goodin appears to have won Vanderbilt’s first base job over Cornell transfer Max Jensen. Vanderbilt also has to find a place for Mack Whitcomb, Mike Mancini, Rustan Rigdon and Carter Johnstone. It appears as if Johnstone may be the odd man out at this stage when everyone is available.

Hudson Barton update

The previously highly-ranked right hander made his season debut on Tuesday after an injury hampered him in the preseason and down the stretch of the 2025 season.

Barton still appears to be getting back to form, though. The Vanderbilt sophomore faced three batters, gave up a run, got just one out and gave up a double.

“He potentially could have got through that inning, but we were really minimizing,” Corbin said. “I think we had 15 [as the pitch count].”

Vanderbilt has higher hopes than this for Barton, but this is going to take time for him. Perhaps with time he can give this group real, meaningful contributions.