Game Recap: Baseball | April 12, 2024
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – A strong relief outing from AJ Causey and a pair big home runs by Billy Amick and Dylan Dreiling led No. 4/4 Tennessee to a 6-3 series-opening victory over No. 25/NR LSU on Friday night in front of a record crowd of 5,901 at Lindsey Nelson Stadium.
In his return to the lineup after missing the last eight games with an appendix issue, Amick wasted no time putting the Vols ahead with a two-run homer into the left-field porches on the first pitch he saw in the bottom of the first inning.
Graduate lefty Chris Stamos earned his first start for the Big Orange and got the Vols off to a good start on the mound with 2.2 innings of two-hit ball, striking out three and allowing just one run before handing the ball off to Causey in the top of the third.
The Jacksonville State transfer stranded the bases loaded in that third inning by getting Mac Bingham to strikeout to preserve UT’s one-run lead. Causey was dialed in from there, tossing 4.2 shutout innings with seven strikeouts to earn the win and improve to 6-2 on the year.
Kirby Connell took over for Causey in the eighth, inheriting the bases-loaded and just one out, but got a strikeout and a fly out in consecutive at-bats to get the Vols out of the jam unscathed.
Despite running into a little bit of trouble in the ninth, Connell was able to finish the game off and earn his second save of the year.
A three-run fifth inning proved to be big for the Vols (28-6. 8-5 SEC), as they were able to take advantage of two LSU errors before Dreiling hit his 13th home run of the season to put an exclamation point on the inning and extend Tennessee’s lead to 6-1 heading into the sixth.
Christian Moore and Blake Burke both had two hits apiece and combined to score three runs at the top of the order. With his pair of singles, Burke extended his hitting streak to 24 straight games, which is now tied for the third longest in program history and three shy of tying Condredge Holloway’s program-record 27-game hit streak.
Tigers’ starter Gage Jump allowed five earned runs on five hits and four walks in four innings to suffer his first loss of the year. Tommy White led the LSU (22-13, 3-10 SEC) offense with three hits and a pair of RBIs.
STAT OF THE GAME: With his relief outing on Friday night, Connell surpassed former teammate and Vol reliever Redmond Walsh for the most appearances in UT history with 105.
UP NEXT: The Vols and Tigers square off in game two of the series on Saturday evening at 5:30 p.m. on the SEC Network.
