The crowd was already on its feet to give him a standing ovation, but it wasn’t time yet for Tegan Kuhns’ curtain call.
Tennessee baseball coach Josh Elander walked to the mound to talk with his sophomore right-hander, who had already provided a gem of a start. With 109 pitches already under his belt, Kuhns figured his night was done. Elander had different ideas.
“They must be cheering for me, because you’re staying in this game,” Elander told Kuhns. Back to work.
A long foul ball provided strike one, and an off-speed pitch on the outside edge gave strike two. The fans rose again, and Kuhns sent them into a frenzy by inducing a swing and miss to end the seventh inning. He pointed to the turf at Lindsey Nelson Stadium and declared: “This is my house!”
It was the 113th and final pitch of a masterful performance, putting an exclamation point on the most dominant start of Kuhns’ career in a 5-1 win over No. 4 Texas on May 8. A career-high 15 strikeouts highlighted seven shutout innings, which included just four Texas hits and one walk.
It was only the second time this season an SEC pitcher recorded 15 strikeouts in a game, the other coming on March 19 when LSU’s Casan Evans did it against Oklahoma.
“I have (struck out 15 batters) in high school, but it was nothing like I did tonight for sure,” Kuhns said. “Just executing when I needed to and landing that curveball down in the bottom of the zone.”
Kuhns set the tone from the start, working around a leadoff walk for a scoreless first inning. His opposite was Texas lefty Dylan Volantis, one of the best pitchers in the SEC, so runs would be at a premium. Once the Vols put a run on the board in the bottom half Kuhns’ confidence rose.
“Right when we scored, I was just walking around the dugout (saying), ‘It’s over,’” Kuhns said.
He struck out the side in the second, and after three more strikeouts in the third the emotion was shining through, with an emphatic fist pump as he left the field. He retired eight straight batters from the fourth through sixth innings.
“I did a lot a watching, which was good,” second baseman Blake Grimmer said. “It was just incredible stuff, and the crowd had his back.”
After striking out Texas left fielder Anthony Pack Jr. for that eighth straight out, ending the sixth, Kuhns was at 96 pitches. The Tennessee bullpen remained motionless. Brandon Arvidson started throwing when the top of the seventh came around but knew it would take some real trouble for his night to start before the eighth.
He, like his teammates, have expressed immense confidence in Kuhns all season, and for good reason. His ERA is now 2.85, the lowest on the team among qualified pitchers by over a run and a half.
Kuhns spent the first six weeks of the season as Tennessee’s Friday starter before being bumped to start the second game of weekend series. That’s when he kicked things into gear, posting an ERA of just 1.29 in his next five appearances. After the last of those, an eight-inning shutout against Alabama on April 24, Elander moved him back to the front of the rotation.
But Kuhns gave up six runs at Kentucky in his first start back in that role, which provided extra motivation entering this weekend. He felt he left too many pitches over the plate that night, and Elander noticed his velocity a few miles per hour lower than usual. Elander decided to trust Kuhns and keep him in the role of ace, needing a bounce back against the SEC’s highest-ranked team.
In the seventh inning, Elander opted to trust him again.
It paid off.
Emmett Siegel covers Tennessee baseball for Knox News. Email: emmett.siegel@knoxnews.com; X: @EmmettSiegel_
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tegan Kuhns has ‘incredible’ start against Texas with 15 strikeouts