re: Tide Baseball 31-27 (12-17)

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***Alabama baseball nuggets...


Alabama baseball’s season opener is next Friday, Feb 18 at home against Xavier. Here’s some nuggets ahead of opening day.

— There are a lot of positive vibes coming from The Joe and many who have seen UA’s preseason scrimmages. Sources close to the program feel like this team is “noticeably better” than last year’s group that ended Bama’s NCAA Tournament drought that dated back to 2014.

— As things stand now, the lineup is much easier to predict than the pitching rotation. Zane Denton is Bama’s leading returning hitter and is expected to play 3B. Jim Jarvis and Bryce Eblin will be in the 2B and SS spots, and Drew Williamson will be back at 1B. When it comes to Williamson, he has been hitting in the lead off spot in recent scrimmages, which isn’t what you normally see for a guy who is 6-4 230. But he gets on base at and moves well considering his size.

— Owen Diodati and William Hamiter are both back from last season’s squad, and will get a lot of time in the corner OF spots. Caden Rose, Andrew Pinckney, and Tommy Seidl, who grad transferred in from Harvard, are all jockeying for time in CF. Diodati could also DH, which makes it possible for two of those three guys to play at the same time.

— JUCO transfer Dominic Tamez has been a real bright spot at catcher, per sources. Replacing Sam Prayton was a huge off-season question mark, and Tamez has impressed throughout the fall and into spring training. Tamez is expected to hit in the middle of the batting order.

— Sources expect the group to be much improved offensively from last year, and Bohannon was quoted in a recent interview as saying he could see this group hitting 80 home runs …

— Bama lost weekend starting pitchers Tyler Ras and Dylan Smith, along with closer Chase Lee, to the MLB. Landon Green is now expected to move into the closer role, but the starting rotation spots are still up for grabs a little over a week out. Antoine Jean, Grayson Hitt, Luke Holman, Jacob McNairy, Dylan Ray, Hunter Furtado, and Garrett McMillan are the guys to watch. McMillan is from Tuscaloosa native and transferred in from Shelton State, who sources say has been “very impressive” in preseason scrimmages. Despite the lack of experience on the pitching staff, sources believe this is some of the best arm talent Alabama has had in quite some time.

— Ben Hess is a talented freshman RHP who suffered a non-throwing injury over Christmas break. He’s going to be out for a few weeks. Continuing on Hess, one source said, “if there’s five freshmen in the country better than him, I’d like to see them.” So that says a lot.

— It won’t be long before this Alabama is tested. They’ll travel to Austin to play Texas Feb 25-27. The Longhorns are the consensus No.1 team in the nation going into the season. To add to that, four teams in the SEC West are ranked in the top five. This season will challenging as ever for UA, but plenty of talent will be on display.

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