Vanderbilt Baseball traveled to Columbia, Missouri, to take on the home state’s Tigers in its penultimate regular season series. May 8-10. The Commodores had an up-and-down week leading into the three games, getting swept by Alabama the previous weekend and defeating Louisville May 5.
Through extra innings and weather delays, the three games were a roller coaster of emotions for the VandyBoys. The squad dropped both the first and last game of the weekend but took the marathon second outing.
As a result, Vanderbilt’s NCAA Tournament hopes have been just about crushed, but there is a lot to take away from this series.
Bitter-sweet record breaking
Everybody loves a home run, and at the beginning of the season, it was a nice change of pace for Vanderbilt fans that the squad seemed much more capable of hitting the long ball than in years past. In the first game of the series, Braden Holcomb hit his 14th dinger of the year, which was the 101st for the team — a new single-season program record.
That program’s home run record was previously held by the legendary 2019 squad that won the national championship. And this 2026 team is nowhere close to that team’s greatness.
While the team’s barrage of power hitting has been fun to watch at points this year, it has been completely overshadowed by the team’s pitching struggles and inability to score when balls are not leaving the park.
That 2019 team finished with a 59-12 record and went 23-7 in SEC play. To date, this year’s squad is 27-22 and just 10-14 in conference matchups. Not only that, but they broke the homer record in a loss to one of the conference’s worst teams — making the feat much more of a footnote than a celebration.
More bullpen volatility
The VandyBoys’ bullpen showed off both its best and worst efforts in this series. In the first game, the ’Dores led 6-1 at the top of the eighth after ace Connor Fennell threw an incredible seven innings. Then came reliever Luke Guth, who gave up a six-run inning that let the Tigers back into the game.
Closer Tyler Baird was unable to put Mizzou away in extra innings either, giving up a walk-off in the 10th frame.
In the second game, however, the bullpen played great. After starter Aiden Stillman was pulled in the second inning, junior Alex Kranzler and freshman Wyatt Nadeau pitched a combined shutout over the game’s last seven innings.
Middle reliever Jacob Faulkner also threw 78 pitches in the series finale and allowed just two hits, but Matthew Shorey gave up a late game-sealing run in his closing effort.
The inconsistency of this unit, especially in late-game situations, continues to be a flaw for this Vanderbilt team as it has been for months.
Foggy frustration
The accumulation of fog at Taylor Stadium eventually led to the series opener being delayed and finished the next afternoon. Before that happened, though, Holcomb had a big at-bat while Vanderbilt was down one run in the top of the ninth.
What looked to be his second home run of the day for the left fielder confused the officiating crew as the ball disappeared into the dense fog. Since nobody could see where the ball landed, the umpires ruled it a ground-rule double, scoring only one runner when there were runners on first and second base.
The TrackMan computer simulation marked the ball as a 379-foot dinger, but the umpires’ decision led Vanderbilt to accept two fewer runs than it could have scored. Eventually, the Commodores lost the game in the 10th inning, and this moment certainly felt like a missed opportunity for them to seize the series.
Postseason hopes diminished
Vanderbilt needed a series win against Missouri to solidify its chance of making an NCAA Tournament Regional but instead took a further hit to its resume. In a matter of weeks, the Commodores have gone from looking like a high seed to likely missing the tournament as a whole.
With just one series remaining against South Carolina, which is also an SEC bottom-feeder, there is little hope left that Vandy could make the big dance if it does not win the SEC Tournament.
While things may look bleak for them now, the talented VandyBoys squad could always get hot at the right moment. But with Hoover being less than two weeks away, they will need to turn around their momentum very fast.
The Commodores will host South Carolina at Hawkins Field May 14-16 to close out the regular season.
