With a difficult midweek outing in the rearview, Alabama returned to its winning ways on Friday afternoon against the Binghamton Bearcats at Sewell-Thomas Stadium. The first of three weekend games to close the Crimson Tide homestand had a final score of 9-3.

The Crimson Tide offense pieced together 13 hits, led by Tommy Seidl’s trio of hits and four runs batted in. Zane Denton, Eric Foggo and Andrew Pinckney each had two hits. Denton and Foggo each left the yard for their fourth and second homers of the season, respectively.

The Tide scored three runs in the very first inning, by way of a Seidl RBI single and Denton’s home run. They never surrendered the lead at any point during the game.

Alabama starting pitcher Garrett McMillan continued his string of impressive outings with seven innings pitched and just one run allowed. He struck out a total of seven Bearcat batters and elevated his season record to 2-0. 

He retired the final 11 batters he faced in a row. Assessing himself, he stated that “pounding the strike zone” worked for him.

“People take for granted throwing strikes,” McMillan said. “[It] puts the hitter in a tough spot. … If you’ve got all three pitches working, [you can] get them out multiple different ways.”

The Bearcats’ first run of the game came off a two-out solo home run in the second inning, 3-1. They did not score again until the eighth, adding one run in that inning and the ninth inning. The Crimson Tide’s final run of the game came from a Seidl RBI. 

“Garrett got us off to an awesome start,” head coach Brad Bohannon said. “Seven great innings of pounding the strike zone.” 

He also praised his team’s offensive output, adding that seven of nine starters logged a hit.

“According to my emails and my DMs, I think there’s some people that are happy out there that we got some hits with runners in scoring position,” Bohannon said.

Alabama improved to 10-5 on the season with the victory. Binghamton fell to 3-7. Game two of the weekend series is slated for 2 p.m. CT tomorrow.