Baseball Review: Kentucky – Rock M Nation

There’s no shame in being swept away for Missouri in Tennessee — they’re America’s best team. Also, is it important to take away from this series how will the Tigers come back? They face a winning team from Kentucky this week, and if the Tigers play their cards right, victory is not out of the question. Let’s analyze the Wildcats to see what the Tigers can expect at COMO this weekend.

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A year ago, Mason Hazelwood dominated for Kentucky. He was 3-0 and had a 2.13 ERA, but his season was cut short by Tommy John’s surgery. He’s been on the road to recovery over the past year and has finally gotten back to where he was a year ago, starting Friday night for the Kentucky Wildcats.

Hazelwood is back on the regular rotation and this will be only his third start of the season with three more relief appearances. In just 9 innings this year, Hazelwood has a 3.00 ERA with 10K and 8BB, but the more he throws this year the more comfortable he should be.

Expect Hazelwood to play in the high 80s to low 90s, delivering a large dose of fast balls to attackers. For many pitchers, restoring your ball-breaking prowess is the last thing that comes after TJ surgery.

Here’s what Hazelwood’s launch looked like last week:

The Saturday Cats starter is currently listed as TBD due to Darren Williams’ injury. So for this review, we’re assuming the Wildcats will head in the same direction as they did last week with Zack Lee as the opener.

Lee has a 4.38 ERA in 12.1 innings this season and has never been renewed. Expect this to be primarily a bank game. While Lee’s there, he’ll be sitting with his heater in the low 90s, shuffling and switching the slider.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find any Lee videos so we’ll continue until early Sunday.

On Sunday, the only hand that has been steady in the rotation in Kentucky, Tyler Bosma, will be featured. He made 7 starts for the Wildcats this year and has a 3.77 ERA in 31 innings with 30K. His best start was against a talented Georgia side when he threw in 6 excluded substitutions, but his last few starts have not been great.

Bosma will be sitting in the low 90s with his fast ball and slider/cutter with a change for his off-speed pitches. His skater is deadly, and he punishes left-handers for many of his punches. Against the right, he’s much more balanced at mixing up his fast balls, switches and slides to throw attackers off-balance. With Hazelwood still recovering from an injury, Bosma is probably Wildcat’s most challenging pitcher.

Here’s what other Kentucky pitchers did this year:

Beat

As far as batting goes, Kentucky has a clear leader on the board, Chase Estep. Junior 3B has a full year on the board at .344/.459/.648 with 9 HR and 29 RBI. He is also the leader of the team in the stolen bases, having stolen 11 bags in 13 attempts this year.

However, Estep have recently found themselves in a poor position with just 1 goal in their last four games but this confirms the success they have had this year that their numbers can still look as good despite the 1-16 drop. Don’t count on Estep’s decline to continue with the striker’s quality this weekend. Expect it to fit right down the middle of the Kentucky 3-hole line.

One of the players that Estep drives often is LF Hunter Jump. By moving from Arizona State, Jump fitted seamlessly into the Kentucky lineup, making the place of leadership his home and becoming the catalyst for this attack. Jump is your lead attacker prototype, he knows his role very well and fulfills it at a high level. He’s cutting .326/.405/.411 with 2 HR and 19 RBI while leading the team in runs scored.

Unlike Estep, Jump is currently in the hot series. Jump has scored more goals in four of his last six games and his confidence should grow in the series with the Tigers. Missouri pitchers need to be caged for each of his sticks to limit the damage mid-range guys like Estep can do.

Here’s a graphic of how hot Jump was in conference play:

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Another racquet that has shown some serious pop for the Wildcats this year is 1B Jacob Plastiak. This is Plastiak’s first full season as a major contributor to the Cats, who made their way to Lexington via JUCO, and he made the most of his opportunity. Plastiak reached Estep for the team leader on HR at 9 and the solo leader on RBI at 33 until he reduced .279/.395/.557. Earlier this season he had 2 HR games against Ole Miss.

Plastic usually scores somewhere between 4th and 6th in the Kentucky lineup, but based on his performance that year, it didn’t matter where he scored; he will wreak havoc everywhere.

Here’s one of his bombshells against Ole Miss:

Here’s what all the Kentucky forwards did this year:

via ukathletics.com

game schedule

Thursday 20 hours | ESPNU

Friday 19 hours | SEC network +

Saturday 14 hours | SEC network