D1 Baseball releases updated RPI rankings ahead of conference championship week

Barkley-Truaxby:Barkley Truax•05/21/22•

BarkleyTruax

D1 Baseball has released its final RPI rankings of the 2021-2022 college baseball regular season. With conference tournaments looming, here are the top 30 teams looking to compete for the 2022 College World Series crown.

A whopping eight SEC teams made the cut, including Tennessee (1), Auburn (4) and Vanderbilt (5) all cracking the top five, but it’s the ACC that plays host to 10 of the top-30 teams in the RPI projections, meaning both conferences make up 60 percent of the list.

The only difference? The SEC has Tennessee, who boasts a nation-best 19-4 record against teams ranked in the RPI’s top-50.

Their impeccable 34-3 record in Knoxville and a SEC winning percentage on .828 (24-5) is no fluke. The only stain on their record – a 2-1 series loss to a Kentucky squad in Lexington that doubles as their only conference road losses of the year.

Led by the likes of Drew Gilbert and Trey Lipscomb, the Vols bats have been hot all season. Lipscomb recently become the first Tennessee baseball player to hit at least 20 home runs in a single season since 2009, while Gilbert leads the team’s batting efforts with an impressive .376 average at the plate.

If the team batting average of .311 wasn’t enough, how about the three starting pitchers for the Vols with ERA’s under 2.0 in Kirby Connell (1.29), Zander Sechrist (1.47) and Mark McLaughlin (1.65)? 11 pitchers have started at least three games for Tennessee this season, none of which have lost more than one game.

Chase Dollander (8-0), Chase Burns (7-1) and Drew Beam (8-1) have combined to account for over 40 percent of starts for Volunteer pitchers this season, meaning their pitching staff can go as deep as head coach Tony Vitello wants to this post season.

With bats hot and pitchers healthy, the Vols are certainly a favorite for a World Series title, the first in program history.

Here are the updated RPI rankings for college baseball: