Very sorry for the tragedy in the early morning Nashville natives, maybe VU baseball will make your day better

The tragic events in the early morning hours in Nashville with tornadoes striking the city and causing, as of now, 19 fatalities, is felt throughout the Vanderbilt community. Just know we’re with you Nashvilleans and you are in the forefront of our thoughts and prayers. This is not an insensitive piece at the present time, but I thought you might want something happy and positive in this difficult time. Vanderbilt baseball and Coach Tim Corbin always bring Vanderbilt fans together and this piece is for the people of Nashville. We’re with you and you will get through this. I’m very sorry for your losses, please accept my condolences for this terrible tragedy. Hopefully, Corbs and baseball will bring some happiness into your lives.

Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin has entered his 18th season with an exciting, young, exuberant team that has so far posted a 10-3 record with some stellar freshmen, excellent sophomores, quality juniors and 2 super seniors left from the 13 players drafted last season in the MLB draft. It’s a group that is hungry to make its own mark. Tim Corbin always says a team is its own entity every year, and this year’s team is writing the next chapter in the illustrious Vanderbilt program that Tim Corbin has built. Last year’s 2019 team was spectacular, posting a 59-12 record, an SEC record for victories, winning the SEC regular season outright, dramatically winning the SEC Tournament championship in Hoover, AL. as the team came back from a 9-1 deficit to win the game 11-10 in the bottom of the 9th on a Philip Clarke RBI single. The phenomenal performance by Kumar Rocker in the super regional game against Duke on a Saturday Night after we had lost the first game of the series by a landslide was nothing short of remarkable. Kumar came out, with all the pressure on the 18 year old freshman, and pitched like a Major League Hall of Famer, throwing a no-hitter and striking out 19. It was beyond extraordinary. We clinched a spot in the CWS the next day and moved on to our fourth College World Series of the decade. The championship series with Michigan was dramatic and nerve wrecking. We lost the first game, but Kumar gave us another outstanding performance to lead us to a game 2 victory and Mason Hickman pitched a gem in game 3. And with some help from the bats and Jake Eder, we won our second national championship. It was so surreal in 2014 that we had won it all, and 2019 was very spectacular as well. The team just accomplished every goal it set out to achieve. Ethan Paul, Stephen Scott, Julian Infante, Patrick Raby, Walker Grisanti, Kiambu Fentress and A.J. Franklin will go down as a heroic senior class that came back to Vanderbilt and had suffered through the horrific tragedy of losing teammate Donny Everett 3 years before, fought through it, and became national champions. They were already champions for what they had persevered through, but they earned what they got, winning it all. Those 7 along with the younger guys who moved on to the pro ranks, guys like Clarke, Pat DeMarco, Drake Fellows and JJ Bleday are etched in Vanderbilt lore. Guys like Harrison Ray, Kumar, Mason Hickman, the great Austin Martin and Ty Duvall are part of that history and will be creating their own legacy this season.

Corbs is now 750-357-1 as head coach at VU, a 68% winning percentage. As noted earlier he’s been to 4 College World Series, 9 Super Regionals, 14 consecutive Regionals, an SEC record. He’s had 15 players drafted in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft including overall No.1 picks David Price in 2007 and Dansby Swanson in 2015. He has 15 players on Major League rosters, whom I will write about in the near future, and it could be 50 or more in professional baseball. He was just elected into the Tennessee Hall of Fame. The culture is the best you’ll find in sports. My good friend and commenter, H. Lamar, said last year after we won it all that we’re the Alabama of college baseball. I wrote back to H that Alabama is the Vanderbilt of college football.

The train keeps cookin down the track as this 2020 team will write their own chapter of this storied college baseball program. And this group looks to be primed to keep getting better and better as our young players keep gaining valuable experience. There are several studs on this baseball team.

Sophomore Isaiah Thomas provided another dramatic finish at the Hawk on Sunday versus a very good Hawaii team. We split the first 2 games with the Rainbow Warriors and on Sunday they took a 2-0 lead against us. Isaiah crushed a 422 foot homer to left central to cut the margin in half in the 4th. We fell behind in top of the 11th, 5-3, but Austin Martin coaxed an RBI single to cut the margin to 5-4, and with 2 runners aboard and 2 outs, Thomas crushed another majorly deep ball that easily cleared the left central field wall for another dramatic victory, 7-5. We now are 10-3 and face Central Arkansas today at 4:30 PM CT (SEC Network+) at the Hawk before setting off for the west coast, Los Angeles, Friday through Sunday to face UCLA, Friday Night @8 PM CT, USC, Saturday at 4 PM CT, and TCU, Sunday at 12 PM in 3 important games as we prepare for the challenging SEC schedule we’ll face. The game with USC Saturday will be streamed live on the vucommodores.com website. I’ll try and get information on the other 2 games if there is any streaming. Then we’ll face Toledo March 11th, a Wednesday, at home at 6:30 PM CT, and we’ll start the SEC schedule with Kentucky coming to town Friday March 13th through Sunday, March 15th. Friday’s game is at 6:30 PM CT, Saturday’s game is at 2 PM CT and Sunday’s game is a 1 PM CT first pitch. All 3 games will be streamed on SEC Network+.

We are currently ranked No.2 in the country by D1Baseball.com. Florida (11-0) is ranked No.1. Louisville is No.3, Georgia is No.4 and Texas Tech is No.5. UCLA is No.6 and other SEC teams in the top 25 include No.9 Ole Miss, No.13 Arkansas, No.18 Mississippi State, No. 19 Auburn, No. 20 Tennessee and No.21 LSU. TCU is No.22. USC is not ranked at present. We will play at Florida, Thursday, May 7th at 6 PM CT on ESPNU, Friday, May 8th at 5:30 PM CT on the U, and Saturday, May 9th, at 1 PM CT on the SEC Network.

We’ve got 12 televised games this season. The Florida series, the final 2 games of the @Tennessee series, March 21st and 22nd, with the Saturday March 21st game at 11 AM CT on the SEC Network and the Sunday, March 22nd game at 11 AM CT on the SEC Network. Thursday Night, April 2nd, at 6 CT we’ll be @ LSU and that game will be on the SEC Network followed by a Friday contest, April 3rd, at 7:30 PM on the SEC Network. Saturday’s game, April 4th will begin at 3 PM CT and will be televised by ESPNU. The Battle of the Barrel, the annual game with the always highly ranked Louisville Cardinals will be broadcast Tuesday, May 5th at 6 PM CT on ESPN2. That game will be at home. Our April 12th game, a Sunday, versus South Carolina at home at 11 AM CT, will be televised by the SEC Network. And our April 25th and 26th games @ Alabama, Saturday, the 25th at 7 PM CT and Sunday, the 26th at 2 PM CT will both be televised by the SEC Network. The rest of our games will be on SEC Network+ on the computer or your smart TV, the ESPN app, and there could be a few wild card games that we’ll appear on in the latter part of the SEC season. I’ll keep you apprised.

Our pitching staff is once again paced by the greats Mason Hickman and Kumar Rocker. Mason is 2-0 with an 0.48 ERA with 3 walks and 26 K’s. He pitched last Friday in our victory over Hawaii and got the victory himself, but he slightly injured his oblique muscle, which Corbs doesn’t think is serious, but his availability this Friday at UCLA is questionable I will say. Will keep you posted. Kumar is 2-0 with an 0.75 ERA with 4 walks and 21 strikeouts. He’s better than ever. He did not pitch Saturday as he was having some arm soreness but Corbs does not see that as serious. Hopefully we’ll have Kumar for the USC game, if not we’ll rest him and Mason for the Kentucky series the next weekend though would like to see those guys pitch against good competition to ready themselves for the SEC battles. Freshman Jack Leiter has been spectacular for us. He was a critical recruit, like Kumar in 2018, who shunned the Major Leagues to play at Vanderbilt. He has lived up to his top 15 recruit billing. Jack is 2-0 with a 0.00 ERA with 4 walks and 16 strikeouts. Jack’s dad, Al, was a long time very good major league pitcher and pitched for a couple of World Series champion New York Yankees teams in the mid 90’s. Jack brings the heat like Kumar and has a super curve and change up. He is a stellar addition to this staff. He may end up being a weekend guy for us this season. Jake Eder is back and pitching on Sundays now. He’s 1-0 with a 3.86 ERA with 6 walks and 19 K’s. The great Tyler Brown is back. Tyler has had some early season struggles, but hopefully he’ll become the Tyler Brown who was so phenomenal last season and a key piece of our national championship team. Ethan Smith is back for his sophomore season and is pitching well as a midweek starter along with Leiter. Ethan is 2-0 with an 0.00 ERA with 3 walks and 17 Ks. Ethan has superb stuff. Another freshman who’s lighting it up for us is Sam Hliboki who also has an 0.00 ERA in 10.2 innings with 1 walk and 13 K’s. We’re really going to like Sam. He’s come in in high leverage situations and has pitched superbly well. There are some other stellar freshmen who will be key pieces to the bullpen. Our team ERA is 1.67 right now. We’ll be tested this weekend on the west coast and we’ll be tested today versus Toledo at 4:30 PM CT at the Hawk on SEC Network+. Ethan will get the start. We have the makings of a terrific pitching staff.

We’re hitting .281 as a team led by our fantastic center fielder Austin Martin, who’s back for his junior year and hitting .364 with 3 homers and 9 Ribeyes. Austin also has 3 stolen bases in 4 attempts. The ultra aggressive left fielder for us Cooper Davis is hitting .327 with 3 stolen bases in 3 attempts. Shortstop Carter Young, another stellar freshman, is hitting . 327 with 10 Ribbies. Our great catcher Ty Duvall is hitting .324 with 7 RBIs. Another outstanding freshman, catcher CJ Rodriguez, is hitting .314 with 8 Ribbies. CJ and Ty have been giving us stellar play behind the dish as well. Ty has thrown out all 5 baserunners that have tried to steal on him. CJ plays exceptional defense as well. Isaiah Thomas is hitting .271 with 4 homers and 11 RBIs. He’s looking like he’ll have a terrific season for us. Isaiah, a sophomore, made a tremendous catch a week ago Sunday against Illinois-Chicago to preserve a 5-2 victory with a running catch where he reached up, hit the wall and held onto the ball to help secure the victory. He’s a very positive, motivated player for us. Like his demeanor. We’ve got another stellar sophomore first baseman in Dominic Keegan, who is hitting .385 in 3 games started. He started over the weekend. Dominic is an amazing story. He had blood clots in his body last year and a broken rib and there was a good chance he’d never play baseball again. But the ultra tough Massachusetts native is playing this season and doing phenomenally well. Justyn Henry Malloy, another sophomore, is showing signs of being a good player for us at first. His defense has been very good, just needs to get the bat going a little. And, of course, there’s super senior Harrison Ray at 2nd. Harry is hitting .255, but making key play after key play for us both on offense and on defense. Like the leadership Harry Ray and Ty bring to this team as our 2 seniors. We have stolen 23 bases in 24 attempts. Last year we had a power hitting club as we belted an SEC record 100 homers. We may need to do more base stealing and bunting this year to manufacture runs though we’ve got guys who can hit it out.

We are fielding at a .970 clip. We’ve got a lot of good defenders. Some more reps and we’ll be extremely solid. Austin Martin in Central Field is exciting. Another guy I wanted to mention is freshman third baseman Parker Noland. He’s hitting .261, but looks to have major talent. He throws overhanded from third, a little unorthodoxed, but looks to be good at the plate and getting better and better in the field.

So, we’ve got quite a group this season with a chance to do sensational things. Gotta take care of business today, and hoping for a super weekend in LA, a solid game against Toledo next Wednesday and then it’s the SEC battles. Should be an electric season for our team once again. This team’s got a shot to be special, just need to focus day to day like Tim Corbin, one of the best coaches in all of sports, likes his teams to to do. The SEC is rugged, but we’re capable of doing well and mounting another deep run in the postseason. CWS? Yes. Winning it all? Certainly within the realm of possibility. This is a young, growing team that might take some lumps at times, but will keep improving and be ready for April, May and June.