Even in a sport as team-oriented as baseball, it doesn’t hurt to have a little friendly competition between teammates within the game.
Such was the case with Daniel Jackson and Tre Phelps, two of Georgia’s main hitting heroes in the Bulldogs' 20-4 rout of Binghamton in the opening round of the Athens Regional.
The two put on quite the show.
Jackson went 2 for 3 with a pair of three-run homers. Phelps enjoyed one of the best games of his career by going 4 for 5 with two homers and five RBI. Phelps also scored four runs.
“That was fun,” said Jackson, who has now hit two home runs in a game this year and has 14.
Phelps, meanwhile, has been on a roll.
After missing eight games earlier this year with a hamstring injury, the sophomore’s health has improved and so has his bat.
His homer in the first inning extended his hitting streak to 12, bumping his average during those games to .369 (24 for 65).
Phelps now has 10 home runs, becoming the ninth Bulldog in double-digits.
Head coach Wes Johnson said it should be more.
“You go back to opening weekend at UNC-Wilmington. Tre probably would have had three home runs that weekend. But we're playing in a big ballpark, the wind's blowing in 30. He flies out to the warning track three times. We're playing at Foley Field that weekend, that's three homers,” Johnson said. “Then he hit the injury bug with the hamstring and some other stuff. I think all you're seeing right now is a healthy, confident Tre Phelps, and we’re excited it's happening right now.”
Binghamton coach Tim Sinicki was impressed by what he saw, not just from Jackson and Phelps, but the entire Bulldog lineup.
“I told my assistant coaches in about the fourth inning that I was exhausted from calling pitches because, you know, they wore me out. I didn't know what to call after a while,” he said. “We flipped the script a little bit in the second inning, you know, from the first inning. We got that zero on the board. But, boy, after that, they just kind of sniffed things out, you know, they kind of figured some things out.”
Starting pitcher Leighton Finley is just glad they’re on his side.
“I think we all knew what we were capable of, and that's what happened today,” Finley said. “Having these guys hit like they were behind me, it's awesome.”