Sloppy defense and a dormant offense doomed Alabama’s SEC Baseball Championship hopes from the 1st inning Tuesday afternoon, when the Crimson Tide dropped their single-elimination first round game to Kentucky, 7-1. “It’s a tough day for us,” Alabama coach Mitch Gaspard said. “We knew going in that this had the potential to be a tough matchup with [Kentucky starter] A. J [Reed] on the mound and ourselves starting a freshman. We just got off to a rough start. [Alabama starter] Nick [Eicholtz] got into trouble there in the second. I thought [reliever] Jay [Shaw] did a good job to minimize things there and give us a couple of opportunities, but we couldn’t get the big hit. For us, over the last three or four weeks, that’s been the theme.” Alabama was forced to use six pitchers after freshman starter Eicholtz only made it through one complete inning and was pulled after hitting leadoff batter Thomas Bernal and walking the next two batters in the second inning. “Sometimes a young guy gets out there and it goes sideways on him, and he just has a hard time recovering. I think that was the case today. I think Nick’s going to be a tremendous pitcher for us in the future,” Gaspard said. “There’s no question there were some mental things going on today. I think when he hit the batter to start the second inning, he kinda lost it a little bit there.” Eicholtz’s replacement, Shaw, threw the longest stint of the night, hurling 46 pitches and striking out two while conceding two earned runs. The quality stint by Shaw couldn’t undo the damage done by the Wildcats, as the Alabama bats went quiet. Center-fielder Georgie Salem accounted for the only run by the Crimson Tide, plated by an RBI double from catcher Wade Wass, his 31st of the season. “We’re obviously frustrated because it’s our home state, you lose a game – the first game – and we’re done with the tournament,” Salem said. “That’s not the way we want to do it, especially with a home crowd when you’ve got an advantage… I think we’re all physically tired and need a few days off.” Alabama left nine men on base Tuesday evening, one of many symptoms of the team’s recently poor form Gaspard says the Crimson Tide will have to address as it prepares for post-season play. “We’ll scatter eight hits, that’s what we’ve done over the last four weeks, but we don’t put them together,” Gaspard said. “It’s kind of two-fold. We were walking people but we very seldom walk. It’s continuing to educate your players on what a winning formula is, and at the same time what a losing formula is. We’ve had a losing formula over the last three or four weeks.” Alabama has been in a late season slide for a number of weeks. The Crimson Tide was ranked as highly as No. 8 in several national polls the week of April 21 but has gone 6-9 since then, including 5 home losses. Gaspard attributes much of that slide to mental fatigue during a stretch when the Crimson Tide has played a ranked opponent in every series. “We’ve been a little too giving on the mound and creating offense for our opponents, and on the other end, we haven’t been able to get many timely hits, and that’s a bad formula, particularly when you’re playing the schedule that we have on the back end of the season,” Gaspard said. “I think that’s a big part of our team right now. I think that we’ve got a tired team that has really had to grind it out.” Now the Crimson Tide will turn its attention to the NCAA Tournament, with the Regional matchups set to be announced on Monday. “We’re really looking forward to the postseason and getting to see where we go,” Salem said. “We’ve got a really talented team. We’re not worried about where we are going at all. A little work and getting better at a few things and we’ll be in good shape.”