Georgia Baseball: Bulldogs begin late season gauntlet against Georgia Tech
Georgia baseball has one of the roughest last two weeks in all of college baseball. But they can begin that stretch right with a win over Georgia Tech at SunTrust Park.
Sometimes you’re dealt a bad hand. That summarizes the last two weekends for the 2018 Georgia baseball season. The Bulldogs travel to Gainesville this weekend to play the no. 1 Florida Gators. And next weekend they host the SEC West leading Arkansas Razorbacks. The Bulldogs are now second in the SEC East and only 3.5 games out of first place. Florida leads the East.
But before Georgia can attempt to upset the Gators, they travel to SunTrust Park this Tuesday night to attempt a season sweep of Georgia Tech. The Bulldogs last played Tech on April 25 winning 8-3 in Atlanta. On April 3, they won 4-0 at home on Foley Field.
The Spring Classic is normally a big deal for baseball fans in Georgia. But with the Bulldog’s stature this season, they’ll have the attention of the college baseball world. Georgia swept Missouri this past weekend and they won two out of three against Tennessee last weekend. Sweeping Tech at SunTrust Park will give the Dawgs another confidence booster.
Which they’ll needed heading down to the swamp Friday. The Gators have won every SEC series this season and they began their year winning 12 of their first 13 games. But they aren’t unbeatable. They’ve only swept two teams in the SEC; Vanderbilt and Missouri. South Carolina and Arkansas both came within two runs of beating the Gators in the rubber matches. Tennessee and Auburn also had close games with Florida that could have resulted in series losses for the Gators.
Right now the Gators are surviving. They’ve built their 18-5 SEC record on squeaking out close games. But so have Georgia. 12 of Georgia’s 33 wins have come by two runs or less. A lot of those wins required late game heroics. And five of Georgia’s nine SEC losses have also come by two runs or less. The Bulldogs are scrappy, they’ll play close games with anyone. They will almost always have a chance to win.
Next: Georgia needs to make Atlanta their second home
The Bulldogs have one more thing going in their favor against the Gators. Georgia has dominated Florida this year. The football team crushed them as did women’s basketball. Men’s basketball stunned Florida twice. The softball team beat the Gators twice in a three game series earlier this year, including one mercy rule victory. Maybe that good fortune will extend to the baseball team.