Alabama Baseball Keeps Getting Rocked in Series Openers
It’s becoming a bad habit for Alabama baseball—every time they open a new SEC series, things go sideways. Four times this season, the Crimson Tide has been run-ruled, and guess what? Every one of those blowouts came in the first game of a series.
The latest rough start came Friday night when No. 6 Georgia crushed Alabama 19-3 in just seven innings. What made it sting even more? Alabama was actually leading 3-1 heading into the fifth. Then the wheels came off. Georgia exploded for eight runs in the fifth and seven more in the seventh, ending the game early under the SEC’s mercy rule (10-run lead after the 7th inning).
“We’ve had some solid starts,” head coach Rob Vaughn said. “But the middle and late innings on Fridays have been killing us.”
This isn’t new. The first run-rule loss was to Auburn on April 4, where Alabama got shut out 10-0. Then came a rough outing against Mississippi State, followed by a 12-2 drubbing at Vanderbilt. All early exits. All game ones.
Tyler Fay, a sophomore right-hander, started both the Vandy and Georgia games. But Vaughn made it clear—Fay’s not the problem. He’s actually been more reliable as a starter than in relief. Vaughn pointed to execution and the inability to finish off hitters when it matters most.
“At Vandy, same deal—he’s throwing fine, then we hit a rough inning and it spirals,” Vaughn said. “That Georgia lineup is dangerous, and if you miss, they’ll make you pay.”
Fay’s performances have been mostly solid aside from one or two tough innings. Vaughn’s standing by him.
Meanwhile, Riley Quick—another standout arm—has had to follow those tough Friday losses. Not an easy spot to be in. Zane Adams started the first two blowout losses; Fay took the last two. Quick’s been the Saturday guy all season.
The pattern’s clear: when Alabama loses the opener, it’s an uphill battle to recover the series. If they drop the Georgia set, that’ll make five SEC series losses in their last six. And in all three SEC series they have won? They started things off with a win.
There’s still hope this weekend, though. In Friday’s second game, which got paused due to rain, Alabama was leading 6-2 in the fifth. If they finish that off and take the finale, they could finally notch their first series win after dropping the opener.
