After dropping Friday’s game to Missouri in the manner in which they did, some ticked-off Bulldogs arrived at Foley Field for Saturday’s series finale against the Tigers.
Having an extra jolt of purpose paid off.
A four-run fourth inning broke a 5-5 tie, while reliever Kolton Smith made sure Missouri didn’t respond. These factors enabled Georgia to take the series with a 10-7 win.
“Our guys are good at responding, and they’re good at coming out,” head coach Wes Johnson said. “We’ve had a lot of adversity in this league for a while, but we came out today and, in a really good game, they punched us, but we were able to punch back.”
Smith (4-2) threw a pretty good right cross himself.
The sophomore right-hander entered play with an ERA of 8.44 in 10 previous outings, but those numbers mattered not when he entered the game with two runners on and nobody out in the fourth and the score 5-5.
All Smith did was strike out two of the next three batters to escape further damage.
It was just the beginning. Smith pitched the rest of the game, allowing just five hits and two unearned runs over the next six innings with zero walks and 10 strikeouts.
The 10 strikeouts were a career high and established a team-high for the Bulldogs (27-9, 7-8) this season.
“He’s been close. You look at some of the stuff. He’s had some tough breaks, but his stuff metrically has been really, really good,” Johnson said. “As I’ve talked to several people, we just can’t miss in the vertical middle of the strike zone. Even though Kolten’s stuff has been really good, he’s missed a lot in the vertical middle. Once I could get him to either side with pitches, I knew he would have some success.”
Smith’s control was impeccable. Of his 75 pitches, 60 went for strikes.
“I was just trying to make every pitch the most important pitch of the game,” Smith said. “That was really about it. Just taking it one pitch at a time.”
Daniel Padysak started for Georgia and was spotted a 5-0 lead, two coming on Charlie Condon’s 24th home run, before the Tigers rallied back with four runs in the third and one in the fourth to tie the game.
But the Bulldogs rallied right back.
Four runs in the bottom of the fourth–two coming on Slate Alford’s two-run single–gave Georgia a lead Smith made sure the Bulldogs would not lose.
“We played with a chip on our shoulder, but that’s just the kind of team we were,” Alford said. “We try to play with a chip on our shoulder, and yesterday definitely helped us do that.”
Smith did the rest.
After escaping the fourth-inning threat, the only other time Missouri threatened came in the eighth after a double-steal put runners at second and third with two out.
No problem.
Smith struck out center fielder Kaden Peer and stalked off the mound to a fired-up dugout. The Tigers would tack on two more runs in the ninth, but Smith was able to finish out the game, getting Drew Culbertson out on a grounder to Condon at third.
“He was electric today,” Johnson said. “He ran out of gas there in the ninth, but it was one of those deals where you’re just going to keep him in there and let him keep going to try and finish it. He probably had one or two more hitters before we would have had to go to somebody else, but that was the best he’s thrown this season.”
NOTE: Johnson had some good news regarding freshman Tre Phelps, who injured his knee while taking a swing during Friday’s loss to Missouri. “We got great news from him late last night,” Johnson said. “I’ll just say it this way, those things are very tricky. Sometimes they can be back in seven days, sometimes it might be two or three weeks. We’ll just have to see.”
In other injury news, shortstop Kolby Branch was taken out of Saturday’s game as a precaution after being hit on the front of the helmet. Outfielder Dillon Carter is also dealing with an injured knee. It’s unclear when he might return.
