Where Vanderbilt Baseball Places in the Conference Standings Ahead of Another Big Week – Sports Illustrated

It has not been the most ideal year for Vanderbilt baseball this season. The reigning SEC Tournament Champions are now in a precarious position in the middle of the pack of the conference after what has been a season full of injuries.
Vanderbilt has been dealing with pitching injuries since the start of the college baseball season and it has led to plenty of pitching struggles, especially on the road.
Now at 19-14 on the year and 6-6 in conference play, the Commodores have six SEC series remaining – three at home and three on the road. This weekend’s home series against No. 16 Oklahoma marks the midway point of conference play before the SEC Baseball Tournament in Hoover, Alabama kicks off May 19.
In the SEC standings, Vanderbilt currently sits in a four-way tie for seventh place with Kentucky, Auburn and LSU. The positive from that? Teams at 6-6 are only a game behind three teams tied for the final double-bye spot in fourth place. The negative side? Vanderbilt is only a game ahead of teams 11th through 13th in the conference. In other words, there is a log jam in the SEC that Vanderbilt has got to find itself on the right side of.
And this weekend’s series against Oklahoma could not be more important for not just Vanderbilt’s position in the conference, but where it stands in terms of its fate for the NCAA Tournament. Even after Vanderbilt’s series win over Tennessee, it was still projected out of the NCAA tournament. A series loss to Texas A&M this past week certainly did not help its case at all.
The good thing for Vanderbilt is that it has played well at home all season, with a 17-4 record. It is hoping home field will play to its advantage against an Oklahoma team that is in the top half of the conference in pitching. The only other team in the SEC with a below 4.00 team ERA Vanderbilt has faced this season is Mississippi State, where it was swept on the road.
Here is the current look at the SEC standings heading into this week. Tiebreakers are not included.
The other five series Vanderbilt has to play are against Texas and South Carolina at home and Alabama, Kentucky and Missouri on the road. The Commodores have a balance of two teams at the top of the conference, two teams at the bottom of the conference and one team that it is currently tied with.
The bottom line for them though is that Vanderbilt has to start winning road games while doing what it has been at home. The Commodores are 2-10 in games played away from Hawkins Field. If Vanderbilt is going to turn a new leaf on its season, that needs to change. The road series against Alabama in unquestionably the toughest road series left while the series against Kentucky and Missouri could play much more favorably for the Commodores.
But for now, Vanderbilt needs to keep its focus on winning its midweek game against Eastern Kentucky Tuesday night before trying to take down a hungry Oklahoma team in a series that runs from Thursday to Saturday.
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Graham Baakko is a writer for Vanderbilt Commodores On SI, primarily covering football, basketball and baseball. Graham is a recent graduate from the University of Alabama, where he wrote for The Crimson White, WVUA-FM, WVUA 23 as he covered a variety of Crimson Tide sports. He also covered South Carolina athletics as a sportswriting intern for GamecockCentral.
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