Tag: Devin Burkes

The 2025 Kentucky baseball team will be missing some of the stars from this year’s College World Series team, including Ryan Waldschmidt, who was the 31st pick of the MLB draft. Several other players were drafted, or opted to transfer, creating a lot of turnover. However, on Wednesday, the 2025 roster got a boost with the return of catcher Devin Burkes.

This past season, Burkes hit .239 with 3 homeruns, 35 RBIs, and a .733 OPS. He also stole 19 bases. He was also very good defensively, and was a leader on the team, and fan favorite.

Related: Kentucky baseball 2024 statistical leaders

The 2024 MLB draft saw several Kentucky players picked, as as well as some Wildcats recruits. However, Burkes went unselected after what was a bit of a down year at the plate. For his career, he’s a .275 hitter, and that’s after it dropped this season. His OPS in his first two seasons at Kentucky was .925 in 2023 and a whopping 1.270 in 2022.

Burkes has one year of eligibility left, and would love to help get Kentucky back to the College World Series, and also boost his draft stock for next year. He certainly makes Kentucky a better team going into 2025, and fans who love him are definitely thrilled to have him back.

The Kentucky Wildcats baseball team pulled off another win on Friday to get to 8-1 on the season with a 7-4 win over a game Lipscomb team in the first game of their series. The game was moved up three hours because of the weather forecast, but that didn’t stop the Wildcats from doing the things they had been doing all year.

Lipscomb went up 1-0 in the top of the first before star catcher Devin Burkes helped the Wildcats score two runs in the bottom of the first with the first of his RBI singles. The Wildcats then scored two more runs in the third to amass a 4-1 lead before Lipscomb came back and tied the game with a three run fourth.

The Wildcats then scored a run in each of the sixth, seventh and eighth innings and the bullpen threw 5.1 innings of scoreless baseball to close the game out. Kentucky’s bullpen has now thrown 13 straight scoreless innings. Jackson Nove threw three scoreless innings, striking out five to get his second save of the year.

Burkes went 3-4 on the day with three RBI’s, scoring twice and adding two stolen bases. The Wildcats were seven for seven on stolen base attempts in the game, making them 29 of 32 on the year.

The Wildcats play Lipscomb in game two of the series on Saturday at 1 p.m. EST. The game will be available to watch on SECN+ and can be listened to the UK Sports Network on UKathletics.com and 98.5 FM.