Vanderbilt's magic number to clinch a spot in the Southeastern Conference tournament stands at two as the Commodores welcome rival Tennessee for both teams' final regular season series Thursday.
Vanderbilt (31-21, 12-14) is 1.5 games ahead of Kentucky for the eighth and final spot in the tournament. Any combination of Kentucky losses and Vanderbilt wins totaling two will give the Commodores the spot.
Tennessee will be playing mostly for pride as it has lost its past three conference series and sports the worst record in the SEC. Their play has been better lately though, as the Vols (22-29, 8-19) have won four of their last six on the road, including a 5-4 win Tuesday over MTSU, after losing their first ten away games.
Still not a good time to come to Nashville, though.
Vanderbilt has won its past six games against Tennessee, sweeping the Vols when they came to Nashville April 20-22, 2007 and sweeping them in Knoxville May 2-4, 2008.
Freshman Sonny Gray (4-1) will take the hill in Game 1 for the Commodores for his second career start. After being used in relief all season, Gray sparkled in his starting debut last week against Georgia, allowing the Bulldogs just one run in six innings of work while striking out seven in a 10-2 victory. Vanderbilt took two out of three in the series, narrowly missing on a sweep when Georgia won on a walk-off hit in Game 3.
Vanderbilt's Aaron Westlake will also get a chance to continue his recent hitting tear. The redshirt freshman leads the SEC in hitting with a scorching .395 clip after collecting 10 hits in his last 17 at-bats.
The first pitch Thursday evening will be at 6 p.m.
