No. 8 Kentucky at Georgia
WHERE: Foley Field
WHEN: Friday 5 p.m., Saturday 2 p.m., Sunday Noon.
RECORDS: Georgia 16-13, 1-8; Kentucky 26-3, 8-1.
STARTING PITCHERS: Friday – LH Jaden Woods (3-2, 5.30) vs TBA; Saturday – LH Liam Sullivan (3-1, 3.77) vs LH Tyler Bosma (4-1, 4.18); Sunday – TBA vs RH Zac Lee (3-0, 2.65).
TV/RADIO: Friday-Saturday (SEC Network+); Sunday (SEC Network); Georgia Baseball Radio Network (Jeff Dantzler, David Johnston)
Scott Stricklin, along with a couple of Georgia’s key players, echoed the sentiments of many Bulldog fans Thursday concerning the team’s 1-8 start in SEC play.
Enough is enough.
“We haven’t played very well. That’s been the message. Put your foot down, enough is enough. Have pride, have fight. The way we’ve played, we’ve put ourselves in bad positions: giving up free bases, making a lapse in judgment defensively or not having a good at-bat when we need to,” Stricklin said. “There’s no question. We’ve dug ourselves this hole. You’ve just got to climb out of it. The way you climb out of it is to do what you have to do today to get better and worry about tomorrow when it gets here.
"It’s been done before; teams have put themselves in this spot before and dug themselves out. We’re capable of doing that, but we need to play better. There’s no secret about that. We just haven't played good baseball.”
Senior tri-captain Ben Anderson said there’s no disputing that.
After getting swept last weekend at Vanderbilt, the Bulldogs find themselves dead last in the SEC East and tied with Ole Miss and Mississippi State for the worst record in conference play.
“I think right now, we’re trying to find who we are again. We came off the Tech series feeling we were really good,” Anderson said. “Obviously, the SEC hasn’t started the way we hoped it would. We’ve got to get back to believing in ourselves, believing in our teammates, and just being confident, and playing the way we know we can play.”
Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, the task does not get any easier this weekend.
Kentucky (26-3, 8-1) enters the series as one of the surprise teams in the nation and comes in ranked 8th nationally. Series against No. 3 Florida and No. 5 Arkansas are next on the schedule.
“Everyone on this team has been challenged; coaches have been challenged, players have been challenged. They’ve (players) challenged each other,” said Stricklin, who includes himself in that conversation.
“Just to make sure we're prepared as much as we possibly can be, watch our opponent as much as we can, practice the little details as much as we can. That’s the biggest thing for us. Just to make sure we're prepared as possible and we’re passing it along to the players to make sure they're prepared as possible. That’s the challenge,” Stricklin said. “We always feel we’re prepared, that we’re organized and that we’re ready to go. But we’ve had to look in the mirror and make some adjustments. We’ve made some adjustments in some of the things we do in practice, how we do them, just to put more pressure on ourselves in practice to be as ready as we can be for games.”
Ultimately, Anderson said it’s up to the players to make that happen.
“Offensively, it’s grinding out at-bats one through nine. We’ve got a really good lineup. We’ve just been consistently inconsistent so far. Just grind out at-bats and find some consistency, because when we’re good, we’re really good,” Anderson said. “On the mound, just battle. When you’re on the mound and you’re the pitcher, you have the advantage. Make them beat you; don’t beat yourself. I think we’re kind of defensive right now on the mound, but I think we’re starting to get back to attacking the hitters. We saw that on Tuesday.”
Another message that’s been passed around the clubhouse: stay off social media.
Twitter has not been kind to the Bulldogs in recent weeks, with most of the ire being directed at Stricklin from frustrated fans. Others have taken aim at the team itself.
“We talk about internal and external confidence a lot. External confidence is media, for example, saying good or bad things about you, and you’re trying to turn that off regardless,” redshirt freshman Charlie Condon said. “Especially when we’ve had a slow start like we have, nothing good comes from looking at that stuff. We just focus on what’s in our circle here, because that’s all that really matters.
Anderson agrees.
“I’m not a big social media guy, but a lot of the younger guys are. If you look at it, let it go. In the end, people want us to do well--they’re Georgia fans. But you have to be able to block some of that stuff out. Block it out, trust the team,” Anderson said. “You can’t let what other people say change the kind of player you are on the field or how we are as a team. No matter what happens, our team is here; that’s all you’ve got to focus on.”
Stricklin feels the team is better than what it’s shown.
“Yes. No question. Certainly, the two hard-luck losses we had happened. That’s baseball. But we’re certainly better than what we’ve played. We feel we’re closer to the team that played Georgia Tech than the one we’ve been these last few weekends,” Stricklin said. “It’s been hard to watch. Our players are feeling it. We’re all feeling it, but the only thing you can do is show up, keep working, and try to get through it. This is a good group of kids. We’ve just got to keep challenging each other and try to win this next game.”
SCHEDULE NOTE: With heavy rain expected Saturday, Stricklin anticipates having to play a doubleheader on Sunday. Friday’s opener has already been moved up to 5 p.m. in hopes of getting the game in before the expected rain begins.
“We’ve got a TV game at noon, so to me, the worst case scenario is we get four or five innings in on Friday night, and now we start at noon. That would mean we start around 10 a.m. on Sunday, and then play one seven-inning game after that," Stricklin said. "If we don’t get Friday night’s game in, then it looks like we’ll only get two games in. Our best chance to get three in is to play it all tomorrow night, so we don’t have to move that start time up.”
