SEC Baseball Tournament 2022: Thursday Schedule and Bracket Predictions
The weather has wreaked havoc on the first two days of the SEC baseball tournament.
Only five games have been completed in Hoover, Alabama, and there is a chance one team will be forced to play two games on Thursday.
The Texas A&M Aggies and Florida Gators kick off the four-game schedule with one of three second-round contests yet to be completed.
Both teams should carry plenty of motivation to win on Thursday so they can avoid a potential meeting with the Arkansas Razorbacks on the same night. Arkansas lost the lone completed second-round matchup against the Alabama Crimson Tide.
The Tennessee Volunteers and Vanderbilt Commodores face off in the second game, and the 12th-seeded Kentucky Wildcats then take on the LSU Tigers.
Kentucky is trying to keep its fight for a NCAA baseball tournament berth alive. The Wildcats need at least one more quality victory to keep that dream going.
LSU will attempt to end Kentucky's run as it tries to reclaim its spot on top of the conference. The Tigers won the conference tournament six times from 2008-2017.
SEC Tournament Thursday Schedule
No. 2 Texas A&M vs. No. 7 Florida (10:30 a.m. ET)
No. 1 Tennessee vs. No. 8 Vanderbilt (30 minutes after conclusion of first game)
No. 4 LSU vs. No. 12 Kentucky (TBD)
No. 3 Arkansas vs. Texas A&M/Florida loser (TBD)
All games on SEC Network.
Predictions
Texas A&M, Florida Play Tight Opener
The Florida Gators must love the situation they have been put in by the weather delays in Hoover.
They received an extra day of rest following their triumph over the South Carolina Gamecocks on Tuesday, when Brandon Sproat threw 8.1 stellar innings.
His fantastic outing allowed the majority of Florida's bullpen arms to rest up for the clash with the second-seeded Texas A&M Aggies.
Florida should have every arm except for Sproat available on Thursday because of the additional rest due to Wednesday's postponement.
Texas A&M entered the week hoping to get a tired lower seed in the second round so that it could avoid the losers' bracket.
The Aggies could still find themselves in the winners' bracket, but their task is much harder against a surging Gators team.
Florida has lost just twice since May 3, and its pitchers have conceded five runs in its last three games, all of which came against South Carolina.
Texas A&M finished the regular season with three high-scoring games against the Ole Miss Rebels. The Aggies allowed 24 runs over three games last weekend in Oxford, Mississippi. They have three defeats since April 28, which featured concessions of nine or more runs.
Florida could try to replicate the high-scoring games out of the Vanderbilt Commodores, South Carolina and Ole Miss, but it is more likely to be involved in a grind-it-out game with so many fresh arms available.
Additionally, runs have been hard to come by for any of the teams that have played in Hoover this week. Alabama's five in the tournament opener is the largest single-game total through five completed games.
Kentucky Challenges LSU
Kentucky should pose a threat to LSU on Thursday night, but the two teams first need to touch the diamond in Hoover.
The Wildcats and Tigers are scheduled to be the third game on, so hopefully the tournament's luck turns around and they can play under the lights.
Whenever they do play, the Wildcats will have a ton of confidence behind them. The No. 12 seed eliminated the Auburn Tigers with a 3-1 win on Wednesday.
Kentucky may have the worst seeding in the SEC tournament, but it has to be considered a dangerous opponent because of the quality wins it has picked up in the last month.
Kentucky is the only SEC program to win a series against Tennessee, which could be the No. 1 overall national seed in the NCAA tournament.
The Wildcats took two out of three games with Auburn last weekend to create some momentum going into their elimination clash with the Tigers.
LSU could argue the same about its confidence since it plastered the Vanderbilt pitching staff for 42 runs in its last regular-season series.
The Tigers also scored 19 runs against Northwestern State on May 17. That performance started the run of strong offensive outings after three straight losses to Ole Miss.
At their best, the No. 4-seeded team can mash at the plate and cruise into the quarterfinals, but it does have six losses since April 26.
Kentucky could catch LSU off guard in the first few innings since the Wildcats played one game in Hoover and the Tigers will be playing for the first time since Sunday.
Kentucky will also be driven by a late push toward an NCAA tournament berth. It could be a dangerous bubble team if it makes a deep run in Hoover because of its regular season wins over Tennessee.
