Tennessee starting freshman Taylor Tracey in series finale against Texas

Tennessee skipper Josh Elander will start freshman left Taylor Tracey Sunday in game 3 of the Vols final home SEC game of the season. Tennessee will be going for a sweep over 4th ranked Texas. 

Tracey, who is a native of Austin, Texas will throw against his hometown team in his 15th appearance of the year. 

It will be his third trip to the mound in SEC play this season. 

On the year, Tracey has thrown 18.2 innings giving up 10 hits and 3 earns runs. His longest outing of the year was three innings against Tennessee Tech back on March 10. 

Tracey is getting the start after Landon Mack was scratched from the starting spot due to arm soreness. Tennessee announced the scratched start on Saturday. 

“Dealing with some general soreness,” Elander said. “We’ll make sure he gets the highest level of care as always. But you know, that’s a guy that’s going to pitch in the major leagues for a long time. Has really, really good stuff. We’ll wait to get all the all the details as it plays out, but he will not throw for us tomorrow.”

Elander didn’t have a timeline for Mack’s return but added he’s “excited to see him back out there.”

“Don’t want to make any guesses at this point,” he said. “We’ll see what doc and the rest of the crew have to say.”

Tennessee’s starting pitching has been huge this weekend on the Vols first two wins. On Friday night, Teagan Kuhns was electric. Kuhns struck out 15 and walked one in the seven shutout innings as the Vols won 5-1. 

On Saturday, Evan Blanco started and threw 111 pitches over seven innings, giving up five runs on seven hits with eight strikeouts and three walks. 

Blanco got plenty of offensive help as Tennessee hit six home runs in a 14-9 win to take the series. 

Tennessee is expected to throw plenty of arms at the Longhorns on Sunday as they look for the series sweep.