Alabama Baseball Uses Six Arms to Cruise Past UAB, 5-1

A combination of six Crimson Tide pitchers helped Alabama baseball to a 5-1 victory over UAB on Tuesday evening. With the midweek victory, Alabama improves to 19-16 on the season.

“I thought the pitching was outstanding tonight,” said Alabama head coach Mitch Gaspard. “This was a really good, clean Tuesday game to give us two solid performances in a row now. That’s something we can build on going into this weekend.”

Crimson Tide starter Nick Eicholtz tossed 3.2 innings and allowed just three hits and one run while recording five strikeouts to tie his season high. Following the starter, five arms out of the Alabama bullpen shut down the Blazers. The band of relievers were able to hold UAB hitless across the final 5.1 innings, collecting four punchouts in the process.

An early three-run home run from Will Haynie put the Crimson Tide ahead in the second. Cody Henry started the sequence when he was hit by a pitch. J.C. Wilhite followed the freshman with a single to put two on with one down and bring Haynie to the plate. With a 3-1 count, the Alabama backstop knocked a homer over the wall in left to give the Tide the first runs of the contest at 3-0.

UAB tallied one run in the fourth, but Alabama would counter with a pair of runs in the fifth thanks to three hits in the inning. With two on and two down, Kyle Overstreet chopped single past the shortstop to bring one across and put Tide runners on the corners. In the next at-bat, Henry singled to right to bring in the second run of the frame and move the Alabama lead to 5-1.

Haynie’s homer highlighted the offense, but the Crimson Tide also received multi-hit efforts from Wilhite and Henry. The two hits for Henry extended his hitting streak to eight games now with the freshman recording multiple hits in six of those eight contests.

Alabama will take to the road this coming weekend as the team heads to Missouri for a three-game series starting this Friday. The trip will be Alabama’s first ever to Columbia and just the fourth, fifth and sixth times the two teams will have met in a series that started in 2013 when the Tigers joined the Southeastern Conference.