Louisville first baseman Tague Davis is making a late push for the Golden Spikes Award, presented to the top amateur baseball player in the nation.
The problem? His team is likely to miss the NCAA Tournament. The Cardinals, after being swept at Wake Forest over the weekend, are 26-22 overall with an RPI of 104.
Can Davis, a sophomore and the son of former major leaguer Ben Davis, be the first player since Cal’s Andrew Vaughn in 2018 to win the award and not play in the postseason? The numbers suggest he should be among the finalists.
Davis leads the nation with 30 home runs and 84 RBIs and is second in OPS at 1.370. He hit four home runs in the three games at Wake Forest and has nine in his last seven ACC games. (For some context, if you counted only home runs, Davis would be hitting .281 in league play over that stretch.)
With his next home run, he will become only the 10th player this century to hit 31 in a season. Pete Incaviglia’s record of 48 set in 1985 is out of reach, but Davis — if he stays hot — could flirt with the 37 hit by Georgia’s Charlie Condon in 2024, the most by any player since 1995.
Davis is hitting a home run in 13.2 percent of his at-bats. Condon, at 12.2 percent, is the only player dating back to 2019 who finished a season over 12 percent, according to TruMedia.
Louisville has eight regular-season games remaining, followed by at least one game in the ACC tournament.
Around the horn
A new two-way star is emerging at Florida. On Saturday night, redshirt sophomore Caden McDonald went 4-for-5 with two doubles, two home runs and six RBIs and threw three scoreless innings out of the bullpen, allowing only one hit, in the Gators’ 10-5 win at Oklahoma. On Sunday, he went 2-for-5 in a 13-2 win.
He’s not yet in Jac Caglianone territory, but the numbers are impressive. McDonald, who recently moved into the everyday lineup as a designated hitter, is hitting .394 with four home runs in 33 at-bats and is 4-1 with a 3.24 ERA and 1.14 WHIP in 15 appearances on the mound.
The Tampa native redshirted as a freshman while recovering from Tommy John surgery. Last year, he threw 28 innings out of the bullpen (5.14 ERA, 1.57 WHIP) and did not have any plate appearances.
Oregon State sophomore Dax Whitney, the top prospect for the 2027 MLB Draft, is scheduled to undergo surgery to repair a torn UCL on May 11.
Whitney, an Idaho native, left his start against Hawaii on April 24 with tightness in his right arm. He was 6-1 with a 2.00 ERA and 0.95 WHIP in 11 starts this season. Last year, as a freshman, he emerged as the No. 1 starter for an Oregon State team that won 48 games and advanced to the College World Series.
Whitney said on Friday night that it is not yet known whether it will be a full Tommy John surgery or a brace procedure. The standard recovery time for the internal brace augmentation is shorter, typically six to nine months.
Oregon State pitcher Dax Whitney confirmed he’s having UCL surgery on May 11. Not determined whether full Tommy John or brace procedure. Either way, possible Whitney bas pitched last time in college, as he says. pic.twitter.com/sUwmYZan3X
— James Crepea (@JamesCrepea) May 2, 2026
Few players this season have had a better day at the plate than Oklahoma State’s Kollin Ritchie did on Friday night. The junior went 4-for-4 with three home runs, including a walk-off bomb with one out in the ninth inning to give the Cowboys a 7-6 win over TCU.
HOMER x3
Kollin Ritchie ends the night with his third home run of the game#GoPokes | @RitchieKollin pic.twitter.com/VdmODyP3Og
— OSU Cowboy Baseball (@OSUBaseball) May 2, 2026
It was the second three-homer game of the season for Ritchie, a junior who is tied for second in Division I with 26 home runs.
Ritchie’s heroics were part of a big weekend for Oklahoma State, which swept TCU to add three quality wins to its rapidly improving NCAA Tournament resume. The Cowboys are 31-17 overall and 14-10 in the Big 12 with an RPI of 32.
Credit Wake Forest coach Tom Walter for creative use of his bullpen on Saturday afternoon. With the bases loaded and one out in the top of the eighth and the Deacons leading Louisville 7-4, Walter summoned lefty reliever Rhys Bowie out of the bullpen. The sophomore quickly got out of the jam by inducing an infield fly and then striking out Davis, the Cards’ best hitter.
Bowie started the top of the ninth in left field, while William Ray, a right-hander, faced two righties (walk, strikeout) and then a lefty (hit by pitch). With another lefty, Ben Slanker, up next, Bowie returned to the mound (with Ray going to left) to finish off the game. Slanker hit a run-scoring double, but Bowie retired the next two batters — with runners on second and third — to record the save and complete the sweep for the Deacons.
Alabama shortstop Justin Lebron is regarded as one of the top prospects in college baseball — he was 10th in Keith Law’s latest mock draft — but he continues to struggle against SEC pitching. The junior from Miramar, Fla., is hitting .226 with a .693 OPS in 24 SEC games in 2026, and only three of his 12 home runs have come against league foes.
As a freshman, he hit .342 with a .910 OPS in SEC games, but that dipped to .252 and .820 in his sophomore season.
Law writes, “Lebron has No. 1 pick tools, as a shortstop with bat speed and increasing power, but the swing-and-miss concerns that teams had coming into the spring are still there.”
With Selection Monday just three weeks away, let’s take stock of how some teams helped or hurt their cause this past weekend.
Stock up
• Kentucky took two of three from Tennessee in Lexington, winning just its second SEC series of the season and its first since sweeping Alabama in the first weekend of league play. The Wildcats are 29-16 overall and 11-13 in the SEC with an RPI of 35.
• Michigan swept Maryland on the road to improve to 30-17 and 15-9 in the Big Ten with an RPI of 42.
• NC State took two of three at home from Miami and is 30-17 overall and 12-12 in the ACC with an RPI of 37.
• Auburn took a big step toward securing a top-eight national seed by winning two of three at Texas A&M. The Tigers are 32-15 overall and 14-11 in the SEC with an RPI of 4.
Stock down
• One week after beating West Virginia in a midweek game and sweeping Virginia at home, Pitt went 0-4, with a midweek loss to Kent State and a sweep at Florida State. The Panthers are 28-18 overall and 10-14 in the ACC with an RPI of 49.
• Vanderbilt holds the longest active streak of NCAA Tournament appearances at 19, but Tim Corbin’s club is in serious trouble after getting swept at Alabama to fall to 27-22 overall and 10-14 in the SEC. The Commodores still have series remaining against Missouri and South Carolina — the two worst teams in the league — but their RPI (currently 71) might not be good enough even if they get to 15 SEC wins.
• Nebraska is in no danger of missing the field, but the Cornhuskers’ hopes to host a Regional took a hit by getting swept at Ohio State. They are 34-14 overall and 17-7 in the Big Ten with an RPI of 18.
It’s safe to say Arkansas’ Kuhio Aloy got all of this one.
469 FEET 117 MPH FROM KUHIO ALOY pic.twitter.com/COA9TwlVfi
— Arkansas Baseball (@RazorbackBSB) May 3, 2026
A few innings later, Christian Turner sent the fans home happy with a two-run home run to walk it off in the bottom of the ninth.
HOW CAN YOU NOT BE ROMANTIC ABOUT BASEBALL pic.twitter.com/W8sq8gNNz7
— Arkansas Baseball (@RazorbackBSB) May 3, 2026
And finally
• With its 8-4 win at Clemson on Friday, Boston College won its program-record 17th ACC game. The Eagles, who lost on Saturday and Sunday, are 17-10 in league play with a home series against Georgia Tech looming in two weeks.
• Texas took two of three from Mississippi State in Austin and is now 21-6 at home in SEC games during Jim Schlossnagle’s two seasons as the head coach.
• Seton Hall has just eight home runs in 39 games, an average of 0.21 per game. Only one team in the last five years has hit fewer than 10 in a season: 2022 UC Riverside, with eight for an average of 0.15 per game.
• UCLA rallied from a 10-2 deficit in the sixth inning to beat Michigan State 13-11 on Sunday to remain perfect in the Big Ten. The Bruins are 24-0 in league play with series against Oregon (home) and Washington (road) remaining. They have already clinched the regular-season league title.
• USC pitcher Mason Edwards set the Big Ten single-season strikeout record on Friday night. The junior struck out 13 in the Trojans’ 5-1 win over Rutgers and has 101 in nine league starts. The previous record was 90, set by Ohio State’s Scott Lewis in 2003.
• St. Joseph’s has already clinched the A-10 regular-season title. The Hawks are 22-2 in league play, seven games up on VCU and Davidson with six games remaining.
• Hawaii junior Isaiah Magdaleno allowed just one hit and one walk while striking out 16 in a complete game shutout against UC Riverside on Friday. Magdaleno is 5-4 with a 2.75 ERA and 1.04 WHIP.
