Alabama pitcher Beau Bryans (#6) sits in the dugout after the game against Missouri on April 25, 2025.
CW / Sarah Munzenmaier
Alabama pitcher Beau Bryans (#6) sits in the dugout after the game against Missouri on April 25, 2025.
With second-year head coach Rob Vaughn at the helm, Alabama baseball secured its first 40-win season since 2002 after getting off to a 16-0 start.
As the season continued, the Crimson Tide quickly proved to be a team to watch in college baseball, sneakily going from unranked to the top-10 in a matter of weeks.
With the season advancing quickly, talk began about the NCAA tournament and the teams likely to host a regional. However, all of this was dispelled as the team compiled numerous SEC series losses as the season slowly neared its end.
With Alabama earning itself a 2-3 SEC series record halfway through conference play, concern began to rise, especially when Alabama acquired the third loss to an unranked Mississippi State. Hope began to vanish as the Crimson Tide lost three of its last five SEC series, only managing both wins at home.
As Alabama finished the season and made its way to Hoover for the SEC tournament with a No. 23 ranking, it quickly got eliminated in the second round. Then in the NCAA tournament at the Hattiesburg Regional, it was another quick exit as the team lost 5-3 to Miami and then 6-5 to regional host Southern Miss in the elimination game.
The quick end to post-season play left many fans wondering what exactly went wrong for Alabama.
“What we did this year, as good as it was, wasn’t good enough,”head coach Rob Vaughn said.
Batting struggles
As Alabama progressed through its first 29 games, just over half of its regular season games and first two SEC series, it garnered some impressive batting stats.
The Crimson Tide had 85% of its 299 hits result in runs, giving the team an average of 8.8 runs per game, and the team batted over .300 in 16 games.
Hitting that well played a major part in sending Alabama to the top of the rankings, however batting struggles are also partially what sent it spiraling.
In Alabama’s last 26 regular season games it accumulated just 158 runs, far fewer than the 257 it scored through the first 29 games. The Crimson Tide also earned runs on 11% fewer of its hits than it did earlier in the season.
Alabama averaged 2.2 fewer hits and 2.8 fewer runs per game on average in the latter half of the season, while also only managing a batting average of above .300 eight times.
Defensive play
Just like offense, the pitching and defensive performances were put on display to start the season, with the Crimson Tide allowing just 126 runs in the first 29 games.
In that same period, Alabama managed to allow just 7.4 hits per game on average, and only allowed 58% of those hits to result in runs, putting Alabama in the position to outscore its opponents.
The Crimson Tide capitalized on outscoring its opponents. Through the first 29 games of the season, Alabama managed to earn 46 more runs than its opponents had hits, with opponents only averaging 4.3 runs per game.
However, like offense, it all took a turn. In the second half of the season, the Crimson Tide allowed 2.5 more hits and 2 more runs on average per game.
Allowing opponents to earn runs on 5% more hits than opponents were able to earlier in the season contributed to Alabama finishing 4-6 in the SEC series that it played.
Looking ahead
In the future, Alabama will need to avoid struggles in conference play like it did this season. Earning 2.8 less runs per game but allowing 2 more by its opponents played a major factor in what led to the unrealized success in the second half of the season.
With atop-15 recruiting class entering the picture, Alabama will need a lot of its incoming young talent to help in any way it can if it wants to see tournament success in the future.
But given the upward trajectory that Alabama has seen with Vaughn in just two seasons, the Crimson Tide is in a good position to see that success sooner rather than later.“We’re going to build this thing the right way, with the right people,”Vaughn said. “The last two years have been the foundation of that. Now it’s time to keep moving forward.”