Friday, May 21, 2010

So Far, So Good: Vanderbilt Beats Arkansas 4-3

Playing around the weather has become common-place for the Commodores, so the fact the game was delayed by 2 hours and 36 minutes wasn't surprising. And, while the fact that Sonny Gray pitched 8 innings, while only allowing 3 runs was no surprise, the way Vanderbilt scored the go-head run in the 7th was. David Bolcair's recap in today's Nashville City Paper does a great job setting the scene as clean-up hitter Aaron Westlake sacrifice bunted Jason Esposito over to 3rd before Curt Casali singled in what would prove to be the go-ahead run. As Coach Corbin said after, the decision to bunt was all Westlake, all he told him to go was hit the ball to the right side. Mission accomplished. As Jeff Lockridge points out in today's Tennessean, the Commodores have won 40 games for the 3rd time in 4 seasons. For a full recap, click on VUCommodores.com.

Jason Esposito reached safely in his first 2 at-bats, extending his streak to 17, however he was unable to break the NCAA record of 18. Still, he's killing the ball, and is 11 of 15 in his last 4 SEC games and is a big reason why the Commodores are one of the hottest teams in America.

With Ole Miss and Arkansas' losses last night, Vanderbilt can clinch the 4th seed in the SEC Tournament (and put themselves in a great position to host an NCAA Regional) by winning one of their last 2 games against Arkansas.

Senior Day festivities at Hawkins will precede tonight's 6:00 start, and begin at 5:45.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Esposito's strikeout was looking, but the third "stirke" was three inches into the left handed batter's box. The umpire had expanded his strikezone considerably in an effort to speed the game up. Tough luck.

Anonymous said...

The 1st base ump blew a call badly...I think it was around the 6th or 7th inning. Our guy was safe and if wasn't even close. What was the ump looking at??? That blown call sucked like american idol...and could have potentially cost us the game.