The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Big bats still booming as crucial week looms
At the start of each week throughout the regular season, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will take a closer look at the Georgia baseball team.
Record: 29-10, 9-9 SEC. Streak: Lost 1. Rankings: No. 10 RPI. Last Week (2-1): Friday, beat Ole Miss 17-6 (8 innings); Saturday, split with Ole Miss, 7-2 win and 3-2 loss.
This week: Today, vs. Clemson, 7 p.m. (ESPNU); Friday, at No. 3 Texas A&M (35-5, 13-5), 6 p.m.; Saturday, at Texas A&M, 2 p.m.; Sunday, at Texas A&M, 1 p.m.
Week in review: Two out of three is not bad, but 3-of-3 is much better. That’s the way the Bulldogs left the weekend in Athens feeling. Pleased but not wholly satisfied.
Georgia pulled even in conference play at 9-9 by winning the first two of their set against visiting Ole Miss. But they lost the final game 3-2 after a long, long day on Saturday. The teams agreed to play a doubleheader to get ahead of Sunday’s wet weather, and that probably didn’t serve the Bulldogs well, as it just seemed they ran out of gas in the third game.
As it went, though, Georgia rode its hot bats to win a second consecutive conference series and set itself up for the challenging last four SEC series. One thing that was driven home is that the Bulldogs’ offense isn’t going to take weeks off. It’s here to stay.
With two more home runs Saturday, slugger Charlie Condon has 26 on the season and 51 in his career. That leaves him two shy of both the single-season and career UGA records set by Gordon Beckham in 2008, with at least 20 games left to play.
Condon has plenty of support, with Corey Collins (.378) hitting ahead of him, Slate Alford (.324) behind him and power up and down the lineup. Collins extended his on-base streak to
27 games Saturday, and five Bulldogs enter the final four weeks of the regular season with double-digit home runs.
Week ahead: One of the most challenging weeks of the season awaits. Georgia will conclude an eight-game homestand when Clemson visits today. The Bulldogs will follow that with the longest road trip of the season to meet No. 3-ranked Texas A&M in College Station.
The three remaining weekends of the regular season will have Georgia taking on Vanderbilt, South Carolina and Florida. There is nothing more convoluted and confusing than college baseball rankings, but only the Gators are not included in somebody’s Top 15 at the moment, and all are traditional powers
and rivals for Georgia in college baseball.
To keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive, the Bulldogs need to go at least 6-6 over these final four weekends. But they’ll aim to do even better. As always in baseball, the key will be having enough solid pitching to get the job done.
Georgia got some positive news to that end as injured pitchers Matthew Hoskins and Charlie Goldstein made returns over the weekend. Goldstein, the Bulldogs’ Friday night starter before arm soreness sidelined him in recent weeks, faced six batters and recorded four strikeouts on Saturday. Hoskins returned after a year off because of injury and recorded a strikeout while facing four batters.