The No. 22 University of Alabama baseball team concludes its six-game home stand with a two-game midweek series against the Alcorn State Braves Tuesday and Wednesday. First pitches are set for 6:05 p.m. on Tuesday and 5:05 p.m. on Wednesday at Sewell-Thomas Stadium.
The Crimson Tide (20-13, 8-4 Southeastern Conference) is just one win shy of matching last season’s 21 wins for the entire 2012 season when it finished in last place in the SEC. As it stands now, Alabama sits in a three-way tie with Arkansas and South Carolina for second place in the SEC behind Vanderbilt and LSU.
Alabama was soundly beaten in its first two games against No. 9 Arkansas this past weekend, but responded well in the series finale on Saturday with an impressive 5-0 victory. Sophomore right-hander Spencer Turnbull (4-1, 2.22 ERA), who was nominated as the SEC Pitcher of the Week following another strong start on Saturday, praised the Tide’s defense after the win for bailing him out when his slider wasn’t working.
The defense was great behind me, continuing to make plays,” Turnbull said. “I didn’t really have a slider at all today, but I was able to keep them off balance enough where they couldn’t just sit on my fastball and it worked out pretty good.”
A consistent defense will be beneficial to have even against an Alcorn State team that is just 8-25 on the year. However, the Braves are on a two-game winning streak coming into the midweek series against the Tide after defeating 19-5 Alabama State twice.
Turnbull stressed the importance of scoring early runs after Alabama’s win against Arkansas on Saturday – a theme that applies for all starting pitchers in baseball.
“I was confident today that if we could get at least two, that we could win,” Turnbull said. “It’s hard to shut out a team completely, but with [Brett] Booth getting us started early, it was a huge lift for us early.”
Booth, the starting senior catcher, gave the Tide the early lift it needed its last time out with a solo home run – his third of the season – in the second inning against Arkansas on Saturday. He leads the team in batting average (.299), runs scored (30), RBIs (23), slugging percentage (.419) and on-base percentage (.401).
Despite losing two of the three games in the series, the Tide has won 10 of its last 14 games. Booth said he was confident on where the team currently stands now.
“I think the way we’ve played over the last three weeks, we’ve been playing some good baseball,” he said.
Redshirt junior right-hander Tucker Hawley (4-2, 2.19 ERA) will start for Alabama Tuesday. Wednesday’s starter has yet to be announced.
