Georgia baseball starts conference play against Alabama this weekend

Georgia baseball closed the strictly non-conference part of the schedule Tuesday with a 15-3 route of Kennesaw State. The Dawgs travel to Alabama Friday for a three-game series.

Outside of a bad trip to Charleston, South Carolina, the Georgia baseball team is off to a good start in the 2018 season. They sit at 12-5 and 10-1 at Foley Field heading into SEC play. Four of those losses came in Charleston. Three against College of Charleston and one against Charleston Southern. They did leave with a victory over The Citadel though.

Besides that bad road trip, Georgia looks solid. They beat Georgia Southern in two games of a three game series in Athens. And they swept Charlotte and Toledo. But the schedule heats up this weekend against Alabama. The Crimson Tide are not ranked, but they are sitting right outside the top 25 of the USA Today Coaches Poll with 35 votes.

Many believe that this is the last chance for head coach Scott Stricklin much like 2018 was the last chance for Mark Fox in basketball. Stricklin has served as head coach since 2013 and he’s only led Georgia to one winning season. He led Kent State to a ton of success from 2005 to 2012, but he just hasn’t replicated that at Georgia.

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At 12-5, he certainly hasn’t done anything to cool his seat yet. He’ll be coaching for his job until he can secure a high seed in the SEC Tournament. Athletic Director Greg McGarity has already shown he’s not tolerating a lack of success anymore. He won’t hesitate to fire Stricklin if the team fails to win this season.

The season so far

Georgia has scored a large amount of runs, 177 to be exact. But 63 of those runs have come in four games. They scored 22 in the season opener against Georgia Southern, 29 in two games versus Kennesaw State, and 12 in the series opener with Charlotte.

Defensively, the Bulldogs have allowed 75 runs, an average of 4.4 each game. Even when Georgia scores a ton of runs, they still aren’t crushing teams. When they hung 22 on Georgia Southern, they allowed nine runs. Most nights, you lose when you give up nine runs. Kennesaw State scored four runs in the first game against the Dawgs.

When it comes to close games, Georgia is still learning how to win consistently. They lost game two against Georgia Southern 8-3, but won game three 4-3. They fended off Charlotte with 6-4 and 10-7 victories. Two of these losses to College of Charleston had scores of 5-2 and 6-4, and they lost to Charleston Southern 5-4. Recently, they defeated Toledo 7-6 in 10 innings.

They’ve just gotten by in their first 17 games. Is that a sign that they’ll struggle in SEC play? Or are the Dawgs a scrappy team that can steal wins from the likes of Florida and Kentucky? We’ll find out later, possibly this weekend at Alabama.

Pitching

Georgia’s top starter on the mound is senior Chase Adkins. He is 2-0 in four starts with a 2.11 ERA. He’s only allowed 13 hits and five earned runs in 21 innings pitched. Adkins has 21 strikeouts and has only walked two batters. Opponents are hitting .178 against him.

Freshman Emerson Hancock has just as many starts as Adkins but he’s struggling to keep runs off the board. He’s allowed 10 so far in 22 innings for a 4.09 ERA. He has also allowed 19 hits and 10 walks. But he does have 19 strikeouts.

Junior Kevin Smith has had the worst woes of Bulldog starting pitchers. He has started three games and appeared in five, but he’s only pitched 15 innings. His ERA is 7.04, and he’s allowed 12 runs on 19 hits and six walks. But it’s not all bad, his record is 2-1 and he leads the team with 23 strikeouts.

The last full-time starting pitcher is sophomore Tim Elliot. In 14 innings, he has an ERA of 2.45 with five earned runs and only eight hits.

Most of the damage has come on Georgia’s bullpen which has watched 43 runs cross home plate. Ryan Webb has allowed four earned runs in nine innings of relief work. But he only allowed one run in his start against Toledo. 17 earned runs have come from five pitchers who work exclusively out of the bullpen.

Hitting

Georgia has five batters with at least 60 at bats and four of them are hitting over .300. The leader of that group is senior Keegan McGovern with a .367 average. McGovern has 22 hits and 17 RBI’s. He leads the Bulldogs with 22 runs, six home runs and 17 walks. He is responsible for 39 runs, the best on the team.

Right behind him is junior Michael Curry. He is batting .349 with 22 hits, two home runs and a team leading 19 RBI’s. The others are sophomores Aaron Schunk (.323) and Tucker Bradley (.304). Schunk has 21 hits and 12 RBI’s, and he leads the team with six doubles. Bradley has 21 hits and is second on the team with 17 runs.

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Sophomore Cam Shepherd is the only full-time starter not hitting over .300. He has a .274 batting average. But he’s second on the team with 14 walks, so it’s not like he’s not getting on base. Shepherd is also tied for first on the team with 19 RBI’s.