Kentucky Baseball This Week: April 29 - May 5

Well, we've dropped our last two SEC series--not a catastrophe to go 1-2 each weekend, but need to right the ship this week. And it will be tough. The Cats (33-9, 16-5 SEC) will host Arkansas (37-7, 16-5 SEC) in a battle of two of the SEC's top teams so far this season, the two teams tied for 1st place in the conference. It is huge.

Arkansas occupies the # 2 spot in D1Baseball's national rankings, with Kentucky dropping from # 4 last week to # 8; Coaches Poll also dropped Kentucky from # 5 to # 8. Baseball America stuck UK at # 9 (behind # 8 Duke, who trails them in the other two polls), and Perfect Game dropped UK from # 8 out of the top 10 to # 11.

A series win this weekend at home could be huge for Kentucky's chances at a National Seed (top 8), which would assure them of hosting a Regional, and if they win, hosting a Super Regional. Those are two big keys to getting to Omaha. Although there's a lot of baseball yet to be played, sticking around the top 5 or 6 in the next 3 weeks could get us somewhere we've never been.

Another key may be to progress into the weekend at the SEC tournament--a task aided if UK can earn a top four seed day 1 bye. Although the race for the SEC Division (and overall) regular season title has tightened up quite a bit, UK still holds a healthy lead over the # 5 spot, as the top 4 teams in the SEC seem to have built a margin between them and the rest of the pack:

SEC East:
Kentucky 16-5
Tennessee 15-6
Vanderbilt 11-10
South Carolina 11-10
Georgia 10-11
Florida 9-12
Missouri 6-15

SEC West
Arkansas 16-5
Texas A&M 15-6
Mississippi State 12-9
Alabama 9-12
LSU 7-14
Ole Miss 7-14
Auburn 3-18

Mississippi State currently has the # 5 spot at 12-9, so UK has a 4-game lead in earning a first day bye. I'd love to see UK win the SEC regular season title, though, as would we all, but the remaining SEC schedule is difficult:

May 3-5: vs Arkansas
May 10-12: @ Florida
May 16-18: vs Vanderbilt

I don't know what it will take to win the SEC, but I would THINK that if UK can win the two home series and not be swept at Florida, we'd be in good shape for a national seed (top 8) ranking. At worst, we'd be 21-9 in the SEC, which is usually good enough to win the league, and we'd be well over 40 wins headed into postseason play in the toughest league in America. If that's not good enough for a top 8 National Seed, nothing is.

But it all starts this weekend. Arkansas is TOUGH. The one achilles heel in looking at their record--they have avoided road games like the plague. Kentucky sports a 13-4 road record this year, with one of the most road contests of any SEC teams, while Arkansas sits at 5-4 on the road -- all in the SEC. They were 2-1 at Auburn, 2-1 at South Carolina, and 1-2 at Alabama. Three of those 5 wins were by 1 run, another by 2 runs, and only one by 3 runs, so they've allowed their opponents to stay in the game with them.

https://collegebaseballinsider.com/polls/