Tennessee Now Consensus Top Ranked Baseball Team in the Country

Tennessee’s dominance through the first month of the season has become so apparent that one of the most authoritative college baseball media outlets demoted an LSU team on a 15-game winning streak from No. 1 in its Top 25 and replaced the Tigers with the Volunteers on Monday.

At 20-0, the Vols are the only remaining unbeaten team in Division I. They’re off to the best start in program history and coming off a three-game home sweep against what was a top-10 Florida.

D1Baseball.com promoted the defending national champions over a now-No. 2 LSU (15-1) that went 4-0 last week and swept Missouri. D1Baseball said that since it began its rankings in 2015, it had never taken a No. 1 team off the top perch after an unbeaten week.

Tennessee, ranked No. 1 by Baseball America for a third straight week, is now the consensus top team. Arkansas (18-2) remains No. 3.

“Just got to keep going,” said Cannon Peebles, whose pinch double gave Tennessee the lead in a 7-4 win Sunday. “Last year we were very fortunate to do what we did. Last year doesn’t really matter anymore. Every single person on this team is focused on this year and we take it game by game, and I think that’s why we’ve had this start.”

There are no weaknesses. Liam Doyle, who leads the nation with 53 strikeouts, heads a staff that ranks first with a 1.72 ERA and 5.61 hits allowed per nine innings. Offensively, the Vols lead the nation with 2.65 homers per game and .662 slugging percentage and are second at 11.3 runs per game.

Tennessee hosts East Tennessee State (15-4) on Tuesday before traveling to a top-10 Alabama (20-1) for a Thursday-to-Saturday series. The Crimson Tide swept Texas A&M on the road over the weekend.

AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports