The Tennessee Vols’ rollercoaster season just went through another drop, this time coming after a second straight lopsided loss to the Kentucky Wildcats in Lexington.

Tennessee dropped the opener on Friday night 9-2, with new Friday night starter Tegan Kuhns getting touched up for six runs on 10 hits in six innings.

Things got worse on Saturday afternoon. Kentucky clubbed three home runs off starter Evan Blanco in the third and fourth innings to take command of the game at 4-0. Then, reliever Brayden Krenzel came in and walked a batter then hit the next one to bring in a run. Ethan Baiotto followed and was tagged for four earned runs in 1.1 innings.

By the time Saturday’s game was mercifully over, Kentucky plated run number 12 to run rule the Vols and claim the series.

After the game, Josh Elander had a strong message to his players — one he partially backed off of quickly.

Tennessee head coach Josh Elander tells players to have a greater sense of urgency after loss to Kentucky

“I just think we’ve gotten beat badly twice in a row,” Elander said after the game. “So at this point, there needs to be more sense of urgency and a little bit more pride. Very, very frustrating day all the way around, especially after the performance last night. Have to come into tomorrow and basically throw this game in the trash and reset, and be ready to go and salvage the weekend tomorrow.

“Maybe pride is not really fair. We’ll have to get with the crew and we’ll talk to them when we give them a second to let the emotions go away, but we all know we need to be better. It’s two bad days in a row, but we need to turn the page and we can get on a run here and play our game in our way. But again, with the little things of giving up free 90 feet and not having competitive at-bats, when those continue back to back, that can make everything more frustrating, make guys try harder, whatnot. But at this point of the year, they know how they need to compete and they’ve come back from this before. We need to do it again.”

I get Elander backing off the part about pride, but Tennessee’s players, both pitchers and hitters, have to do their jobs better. While the pitching stats and the scoreboard spoke for itself, the blame goes all around. Bad at bats made the jobs of Kentucky’s starters — who allowed two earned runs over 15 innings — easier than they should have been. Four runs in two games won’t beat anybody.

Tennessee has a change to salvage the series on Sunday and get a little bit of the good vibes from last weekend’s series win over Alabama back. And with Texas and Oklahoma waiting for them in the coming weekends, Tennessee can’t afford to let the ones they should win get away from them.