The past four weeks haven’t been easy for first baseman Patrick Sullivan.
After suffering a concussion on March 17 at South Carolina, the redshirt junior had been relegated to watching Georgia’s impressive run to the top of the SEC standings, earning a No. 2 national ranking along the way.
Tuesday night against No. 17 Georgia Tech, Sullivan was back on the field where his solo home run was one of two on the evening for the Bulldogs (28-6), who rolled to a 12-2 victory before a Foley Field crowd of 3,009.
“It’s definitely been frustrating to watch, but it’s also been exciting, because we’ve been playing really well,” Sullivan said. “We’ve had a lot of guys banged up, but other people have stepped up. It’s been tough, but also its one of those things where we’ve been playing so well, and I knew we’d get healthy eventually.”
Sullivan wasn’t the only injured Bulldog to get back on the field.
Catcher Mason Meadows played his first game since fouling a ball off his face March 24 against LSU, and picked up a single, going 1-for-3.
By design, neither Sullivan nor Meadows played the entire game, but on this day, they weren’t needed.
“For Patrick to come in and hit a ball in the opposite gap, he barreled it up. He just had some positive at-bats and made a couple of plays at first base when he looked comfortable,” head coach Scott Stricklin said. “To get them (Sullivan and Meadows) in and out cleanly, they played well, now they have some confidence moving forward and we didn’t wear them out.”
Even not counting Sullivan it was a new-look Bulldog lineup that pounded out 14 hits against the Yellow Jackets (22-11), who beat Georgia in a rain-shorted game on March 26 in Atlanta, 11-2.
For the first time this year, Stricklin moved Tucker Maxwell from the nine-hole to leadoff with Cam Shepherd dropping to No. 6, and the move paid immediate dividends.
Maxwell led off the game for Georgia with his seventh home run, the first of two runs for the Bulldogs, who pushed across another run in the second and two more in the third--one coming on Sullivan’s second home run of the year.
Georgia Tech finally answered with a solo homer by Tristin English in the fifth, but back came Georgia with four in the seventh to account for the final score.
“That was crazy. I was just trying to get a good pitch, and was just fortunate to get a good swing,” Sullivan said. “I was just glad the thing went over.”
Shepherd, who saw his average dip to .214, lined a sharp single to left as part of the four-run seventh after earlier driving home a couple of runs on a pair of sacrifice flies.
Stricklin laughed when asked how long he’d been considering moving Maxwell and Shepherd in the order.
“This morning. I actually texted Shep this afternoon. He’s a veteran guy. I didn’t want him to walk into the locker room and see it,” Stricklin said. “I asked him how did he feel about moving down, let Tucker lead off, and him getting a different look in the sixth hole. He said, ‘Cool, Coach,’ that’s what he said. So, he was ready to go, he’s a team guy. It was good to see a sac fly and a hard-hit single. Defensively, he’s the best shortstop in the country. We just need to get him going.”
Meanwhile, junior right-hander Tim Elliott continued his excellent work.
Elliott went seven innings, allowing just two runs on five hits with two walks and six strikeouts, pushing his record to 5-1.
By giving up two runs--just the fifth and sixth he’s allowed in 41.2 innings--Elliott actually saw his ERA rise from 1.04 to 1.31. But you won’t find anyone complaining.
“I didn’t pitch as well as I did last time against them (4.1 innings, two runs), so I told myself I was going to come out punching,” Elliott said. “I did, and we did. It was a huge win for us.”
Justin Glover closed out the game for Georgia with a scoreless eighth, with James Williams and Christian Ryder closing out the game by combining to blank the Yellow Jackets in the ninth.
NEXT UP: Georgia swings back into action Thursday for the first of three games at Tennessee. The Bulldogs return home next Tuesday night against Clemson before hosting Missouri for three games starting April 18.
