No. 4 Texas Drops Disappointing Series Against Tennessee: Longhorns Notebook

Sometimes in baseball you’re the hammer and others you’re the nail. For the No. 4 Texas Longhorns (37—12, 16—10), they were unfortunately the latter in their series against the Tennessee Volunteers (34—18, 13—14).

It was all Tennessee from the opening game in this one, as the Volunteers stifled Texas’ bats in a 5-1 win on Friday and then absolutely raked in a 14-9 series-clinching win on Saturday in which they scored in every inning.

Then in the finale, the Longhorns looked like the team that has consistently won games against conference competition. Everything was clicking from the first inning, with the bats exploding for 13 runs while the pitching staff dialed in and held a hot Tennessee offense to only six runs in the 13-6 win to avoid a sweep.

Three key takeaways from Texas’ series loss to Tennessee

Starting pitching struggles 

All season long, the starting rotation for Texas has been a consistently strong presence. That was not the case against the Volunteers. Dylan Volantis was off on Friday evening, giving up three runs across five innings.

Following him, Luke Harrison only lasted 3.2 innings and gave up six runs with four being earned. Lastly, Ruger Riojas gave up a grand slam in the first inning of his outing. However, he did give the Longhorns three shutout innings after that but ultimately only tossed four innings.

A rough weekend from the Longhorns starting staff isn’t the end of the world, but they’ll hope that it is out of their system with postseason play on the horizon.

Offense shows signs of life

By now, it is evident to everyone that when the Longhorns offense is firing on all cylinders that they can score runs in bunches. However, that has been far from a consistent occurrence at the plate this season.

In the opener, they struck out nine times and managed only one run on an Aiden Robbins home run. Bouncing back on Saturday, they put up nine runs on 10 hits in a disappointing 14-9 loss. Fortunately, that momentum carried into their 13-6 win on Sunday, with Casey Borba blasting a pair of home runs in the victory.

Losing the series is a tough pill to swallow, but if this version of the Longhorns lineup continues to show up heading into postseason play? Well, they will certainly feel good about their chances of making a deep run.

Road struggles continue

As we’ve said many times, winning on the road is a difficult task and only gets harder when you’re facing a conference foe. Just ask the Longhorns, who have not fared well away from the friendly environment of UFCU Disch-Falk Field in 2026.

Entering the weekend, they sported a 7-6 record on the road. With the series officially wrapped up and no more regular season road contests, they went 8-8 this year. Now, they’ll need to finish strong against Missouri and in the SEC Tournament to secure a national seed.

Otherwise, should they win their likely Austin Regional, they’ll have to go on the road for a Super Regional.

What’s next for Texas?

The Longhorns are back in action on Thursday evening, returning home for their final conference series of the season against the Missouri Tigers

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