Vanderbilt Baseball Notebook: Fennell Throws Strikes, Korbin Reynolds Evolution, Corbin’s Thoughts on RPI – Sports Illustrated

NASHVILLE – It did not take long for Vanderbilt starting pitcher Connor Fennell to find a rhythm. In fact, the pace of Vanderbilt’s game against No. 16 Oklahoma Thursday night went at the speed at which Fennell works through batters: quickly.
Once again, Fennell was at his best in the win over the Sooners as he mowed down batters en route to a 104-pitch, 7.1 inning outing. Fennell allowed seven hits and three runs – one of the three were credited to Fennell with Tyler Baird on the mound in the top of the eighth.
But most important of all, Fennell found the zone early and often. Out of his 104 pitches, 78 of them were strikes as he struck out 10 batters.
“I mean, you just got to get ahead of guys and that’s kind of the way I pitch. So being able to go in there and throw that many strikes, it’s going to help you a lot,” Fennell said of his performance.
The game started off as a pitcher’s duel as Fennell went toe-to-toe with Oklahoma starting pitcher LJ Mercurius. Though Fennell blinked first in terms of the scoreboard, he won the war as Vanderbilt was able to hang three runs on Mercurius.
Overall on the night, Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin thought Fennell was in a zone. The thing that Corbin looks for the most out of his pitchers are strike throwers, which is precisely what Fennell was Thursday.
“He’s very competitive. He’s very consistent when it comes to that. He doesn’t beat himself and I think that’s the biggest thing, especially against a team like this that can put a lot of pressure on you with their legs and put a lot of pressure on you with their bats, too,” Corbin said.
Fennell’s outing was certainly a bounce back night after allowing five runs in the first game of the series against Texas A&M a week ago. Additionally, Fennell did enough to help Vanderbilt take the first game of the series and give itself a great opportunity to win a series Friday or Saturday against a ranked team.
“It’s huge. Going in there and setting the tone on a Thursday night is huge for us,” Fennell said.
What Vanderbilt catcher Korbin Reynolds has done defensively as a freshman is something that casual fans may not notice watching the game, but it is one of the more underrated developments of Vanderbilt’s season.
Corbin made sure to note how impactful Reynolds has been for the Commodores calling games behind the plate and helping Vanderbilt pitchers from a mental standpoint. Corbin pointed to one moment in the top of the eighth inning to illustrate this.
Vanderbilt was hanging onto the lead up 5-4 while Oklahoma had a runner on third base, threatening to tie the game or even take the lead. But before getting the final out of the inning, Reynolds took a trip up to the mound to talk to Tyler Baird.
“He went out there and told the pitcher to get a deep breath, he patted him on the rear end, he slowed him down a bit. And I thought that was a big moment. It was just that his command of the game for a young kid is very good. You never see him sped up,” Corbin said. “There’s not a point where mentally – and we’ve had a lot of freshman catchers not necessarily start – but when they get in there, you can just tell they’re sped up. He doesn’t get sped up. He plays the game at the speed he wants to play it.” 
Heading into today, Vanderbilt was ranked 99th in the RPI among all Division I college baseball teams. It is certainly a position that Corbin and his teams are not used to being in over the years.
But as of Thursday night, those numbers do not concern him really at all. He knows and his players know that there is still plenty of baseball to play. With five SEC series in addition to this weekend still yet to play before the SEC Tournament, there are ample opportunities for the Commodores to fight their way firmly into NCAA Tournament projections.
“I think our biggest control is our ability to win baseball games and we’re in a really good conference. So if you win baseball games inside this conference, it’ll take care of itself. You asked me if I was concerned. I’m not. I think when you look at it, you go, ‘Woah’ but at second glance you go, ‘We’re not even midway through the SEC season yet.' And we’ve played some good people, but I think it’ll shake out,” Corbin said.
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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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