‘In hindsight, wasn’t the right decision’ — Josh Elander admits to coaching error in Tennessee’s series loss to Kent State

The Vols’ head coach owned a mistake that led to the floodgates opening.

Craig Smith — College Football & NFL Trending News Writer
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Tennessee Vols baseball has been automatic in non-conference opponents in a weekend series. Coming into the season, the Vols hadn’t lost such a series since 2020.

But the ball can take some funny hops in baseball, and the sport is unpredictable to a large degree. And it certainly didn’t go the Vols’ way on Sunday in a 9-5 loss to Kent State. The Golden Flashes took advantage of a disastrous bullpen outing and some poor defense to leap in front and later pull away to clinch the series.

After the game, head coach Josh Elander acknowledged a decision that he says, in hindsight, he wished he wouldn’t have made — pulling starting pitcher Evan Blanco from the game when he did.

Tennessee’s Josh Elander admits he wished he hadn’t pulled pitcher Evan Blanco going into the fifth inning

“That was weird, to be honest,” Elander said. “We pulled him there, and in hindsight, wasn’t the right decision at the time. The velo was down a little bit and the command. So, when you get that combo of both, we thought it was time to go to the next guy. It is what it is there, but ton of confidence with him. Again, e was still getting strikeouts, a lot of swing and miss on the heater alone, even with the velo down. But we just felt like it was a good time to make a move.”

Blanco allowed three earned runs in four innings on four walks with eight strikeouts. Two of those runs came on an RBI double with two outs in the fourth by Kent State’s Max Humphrey, but Blanco struck out the next batter to get out of the inning.

Tennessee’s bullpen struggled on Sunday against Kent State

Then, the bullpen completely melted down in the fifth inning. Down 3-2, freshman reliever Ethan Baiotto walked two and hit a batter to load the bases with no one out before getting the hook. Nic Abraham came in and immediately hit another batter to bring in a run. Then, Kent State beat out a grounder to avoid a double play and plate another run. A wild throw into center field by catcher Stone Lawless brought in a sixth run of the game for the Golden Flashes.

After a sac fly and an error brought in three for Tennessee in the bottom of the fifth, the Vols’ bullpen helped deliver the coup de grace in the top of the eighth. Brayden Krenzel came in with two on and two out and proceeded to hit a batter before spiking a pitch wildly that scored a run. After a walk, Micah Rienst singled on a line drive to right to plate two more runs.

“Guys got to attack the strike zone a little bit more,” Elander said. “It was weird. Some of those guys threw the ball really, really well earlier this week or last week and earned the right to be back out there, and we really just didn’t see the same zip from those guys. It’s a long season, a lot of baseball. Hats off to Kent (State) for what they did this weekend, but this will be good because our guys can make the decision to be better, and I’m confident that they will.”

It certainly is a long season, and Tennessee has plenty of time to figure out who are the reliable arms and get their best guys in place to best succeed.

But there was some ugly baseball in Knoxville this weekend and particularly on Sunday. We’ll see if this can serve as a wakeup call for improvement going into next weekend, when the Vols take on national championship contender UCLA in Arlington, Texas.

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