Georgia baseball looks to improve against in-state competition
Georgia’s baseball program entered the 2022 season as a top-25 team in essentially every baseball preseason poll.
Expectations are already high for head coach Scott Stricklin’s club, but one thing they must improve upon is their performance against in-state competition.
“Our recruiting home is Georgia, most of our kids are from the state,” Stricklin said. “Obviously you want to do well, and we lost a couple of tight games last year.”
Last year, Georgia lost four times to teams from the state of Georgia whereas over the prior two seasons they had only lost a combined six times.
Two of those losses came to Georgia Tech, which likely contributed to the Yellow Jackets making the NCAA tournament over Georgia even though the Bulldogs had a higher RPI ranking (41-46).
In order for Georgia to perform better in tight games this year, Stricklin emphasized the importance of being patient.
“I would like to see our strikeout numbers go down and our walk numbers go up,” Stricklin said. “It’s a lot easier to be offensively successful when you put the ball in play.”
Stricklin also expects experience, depth and talent to all play a factor in this team’s performance versus in-state competition. He said this is one the deeper teams he’s had.
Certainly experience will play a factor for Georgia, as they have 29 players returning, including sophomore Jaden Woods and junior Jonathan Cannon, who were both named to the preseason AllSoutheastern Conference second team.
Georgia also returns the Tate brothers, Connor and Cole, who were the team’s number one and two hitters respectively.
“You can’t teach experience, you have to earn it,” Stricklin said. “Our guys have certainly earned their experience.”
With all of Georgia’s returning talent, expectations are high for this year’s team to execute in tight games this year.
Season tickets have been sold out, Foley Field is back to 100% capacity and fans are expecting this year to have a much better ending than last year. Georgia was on the outside looking in last year for the NCAA tournament after posting a 31-25 record.
So how do the Bulldogs plan to handle the high expectations surrounding the team?
“For us it’s just expected. ... We expect to be a postseason team competing to get to Omaha (for the College World Series),” Stricklin said.
In order for Georgia to return to the NCAA tournament, Stricklin stressed the importance of using this team’s experience as an advantage. Stricklin wants his players to play smarter in high-leverage situations, both offensively and defensively.
Offensively, Stricklin would like to see more plate discipline, while on defense he wants to see less walks and hit by pitches. Stricklin emphasized that free bases will hurt this team when they’re trying to close games.
Cannon, Georgia’s opening day starting pitcher, believes the Bulldogs have the team and talent to go all the way this year.
“Any team can beat anyone,” Cannon said. “We are going to put our heads down and do what we can and hopefully end up on top.”
Cannon went on to say that his teammates certainly feel the energy surrounding them, but they still have a lot of work to put in between now and June if they want to achieve their goals.