TUSCALOOSA | With the NCAA’s new rules pushing back the start of the baseball season, essentially forcing more midweek contests, just about every team is going to have games in which the manager will look to his pitching staff and know there’s no one ready to answer his call.

However, despite playing its sixth game in seven days, Wednesday was not one of those times for the University of Alabama, which rode the arm of sophomore right-hander Austin Graham (1-0) for 6 2/3 innings, and took advantage of a 12-hit evening for an 8-2 victory against Troy.

“Graham has good stuff and once he learns to locate it better could be really good,” coach Jim Wells said. “It was just nice to win, and against a quality team.”

The win meant a spilt in the two-day home-and-home series, and snapped Alabama’s three-game regular-season losing streak against Troy (9-2).

“It felt really good,” Graham said. “There’s still a lot of room for improvement, but in the four wins our starting pitching has done well.”

Both teams had pitchers making their first starts in more than a year due to injury. Graham hadn’t started since March 8, 2006 (a 7-6 victory win at South Alabama), when he re-injured a shoulder injury originally sustained playing football in high school, but had made two relief appearances this season.

Meanwhile, Troy junior right-hander Jeff Green pitched just three games last year before undergoing season-ending Tommy John surgery on his elbow.

Graham, who attracted at least 10 scouts to Sewell-Thomas Stadium (which had a paid attendance of 4,121 despite temperatures dropping below 50 degrees), definitely got the better of the matchup and made a strong bid to be in the weekend rotation for the SEC opener against Kentucky in two weeks.

“Plan on it,” he said. “The coach has been pushing me really hard. Number one goal.”

He allowed five hits and two unearned runs, with four strikeouts and four walks, and threw 111 pitches.

Freshman shortstop Josh Rutlegde led off the first with a seeing-eye single up the middle, giving him an eight-game hitting streak, followed by junior designated hitter Alex Avila’s first extra-base hit of the year, a 94-mph fastball that he bounced off the left-field scoreboard for a home run.

“I knew coming into this season I wasn’t going to get much to hit,” said Avila, who is batting .229. “I think I was kind of trying to do too much. Now I’m starting to settle down.”

After Graham got out of a bases-loaded jam in the second, thanks to junior catcher Mike Sharp throwing out base-runner Charley Williams at first, Alabama extended its lead in the third on senior first baseman Matt Bentley’s ground-rule double down the left-field line with the bases loaded, scoring Rutledge and Wilson. With junior right fielder Kent Matthes’ subsequent two-run single to left, Alabama held a 6-0 lead to chase Green (0-1).

However, Troy scored twice in the fourth when Williams, a junior left fielder batting .182, got around on a fastball and put it over the right-field wall.

Alabama completed the scoring in the eighth, when Bentley led off with his second double of the game, went to third on Matthes’ single to left, and scored on a wild pitch. Matthes was later singled in by Sharp.

“The team has hit, and scored, that has not been a problem, and the best hitter hasn’t been a part of it,” Wells said, referring to his cleanup hitter Avila. “We have a chance to be a good offense.”

Junior right-hander Robert Phares finished the game for his first save.

Alabama (4-5) will open a three-game series against Youngstown State at 6:30 p.m. Friday. The Tide will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the 1983 College World Series team over the weekend, with 20 former players and coaches expected to attend.



Reach Christopher Walsh at christopher.walsh@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0196.