Surprise! Kentucky baseball is in the top 10. See where the Cats rank in this week’s polls.

Lexington Herald-Leader

April 3, 2023 at 1:44 p.m.·2 min read

Kentucky has had to win 25 of its first 28 games this season to do it, but the Wildcats have moved from unranked in the preseason into the nation’s top 10 of college baseball.

Coach Nick Mingione’s Cats completed a three-game sweep of Southeastern Conference foe Missouri at Kentucky Proud Park over the weekend and woke up to a No. 10 ranking Monday in the USA Today baseball coaches’ poll. UK is one of seven SEC teams in the top 10, joined by No. 1 LSU, No. 3 Florida, No. 4 Vanderbilt, No. 5 Arkansas, No. 6 South Carolina and No. 8 Tennessee.

Kentucky (25-3 overall, 8-1 SEC) is off to its best start in years but still has series remaining against five of those schools — LSU, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Tennessee and Florida in addition to a home-and-home set against No. 12 Louisville.

Will the Cats be up to the challenge? The analytics show they might: UK has 17 wins this season over RPI top-100 teams including 10 vs. the top 50. And, by the way, Kentucky is No. 1 in the NCAA’s RPI ratings.

UK was ranked No. 8 Monday by Collegiate Baseball and No. 10 by Baseball America and D1Baseball.com.

The Wildcats, winners of 21 of their last 22 games, host Dayton (7-19) on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. (SEC Network Plus) at Kentucky Proud Park before a three-game series at Georgia (15-13, 1-8) starting Friday.

Kentucky beat Missouri (19-9, 3-6) by scores of 12-2, 10-0 and 3-1 over the weekend, completing the sweep in front of 2,646 fans Sunday and securing its best SEC start ever.

UK scraped out Sunday’s win with only five hits. Jackson Gray went 2-for-3 and scored a pair of runs. Hunter Gilliam increased his hitting streak to 21 games.

Six UK pitchers teamed up to scatter six Missouri hits. Kentucky’s defense was also on its toes, making a couple of stellar plays late in the game to preserve the win. The Tigers failed to take advantage of nine walks issued by UK’s pitchers by leaving 16 men on base on the day.

Mason Moore (1-0) pitched two innings of relief to earn the win. Seth Chavez collected his first save of the season.

Kentucky first baseman Hunter Gilliam ran his hitting streak to 21 games with a single in his first at-bat on Sunday. Gilliam, a transfer from Longwood University, leads the Wildcats with a .410 batting average, six home runs and 41 RBI.

Tuesday

Dayton at No. 10 Kentucky

When: 6:30 p.m.

TV: SEC Network Plus (online only)

Radio: WLAP-AM 630

Records: Kentucky 25-3 (8-1 SEC), Dayton 7-19 (2-1 Atlantic 10)

Series: Kentucky leads 11-2

Last meeting: UK won 12-1 in seven innings on April 26, 2022, in Lexington.

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