Vanderbilt baseball will pitch left-hander JD Thompson in its regional opener against Wright State, a program spokesperson confirmed to The Tennessean.
Thompson has been the Commodores' Friday night starter all season. He is 5-5 with a 4.06 ERA in 15 starts this season with 110 strikeouts and 29 walks in 82 innings. He is the first Vanderbilt pitcher to surpass 100 strikeouts since 2021. In his most recent outing against Oklahoma in the SEC tournament, Thompson pitched five innings and allowed one run with 11 strikeouts.
No. 1 seed Vanderbilt (42-16) will face Wright State (38-19) in the regional opener May 30 (5 p.m. CT, SEC Network).
Many top-seeded teams do not pitch their ace in the regional opener, but Tim Corbin has always bucked that trend. In every regional that the Commodores have hosted under Corbin, they have pitched their No. 1 starter that season so long as that pitcher was healthy.
Thompson also started the regional opener in 2024. He is just the second pitcher under Corbin to start two regional openers during his career. Drake Fellows started game 1 in both 2018 and 2019.
"I would compare (Wright State) to Louisville, Kentucky and Oklahoma," Corbin said May 29. "We happened to have all those teams at the end of the year, so they're they're very much speed dominated, but yet they've got some power bats, a couple kids with 20-plus home runs ... and those home runs are spread throughout the lineup. So it's a nice combination of power and speed. So in doing that, you minimize that by keeping them off base. I think that's first and foremost. So if we can do that, you make it a little bit more difficult. We've got a left-hander, so you hope, in some ways, that negates the running game."
Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on X @aria_gerson.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Here's who will start Vanderbilt baseball's regional opener vs Wright State
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