Florida at No. 9 Georgia
WHERE: Foley Field
WHEN: Friday 7 p.m., Saturday 2 p.m., Sunday 12:30 p.m.
RECORDS: Georgia 34-12, 13-8; Florida 28-18, 9-12
STARTING PITCHERS: Friday – Tony Locey (7-1, 2.60) vs Tommy Mace (7-3, 4.48); Saturday – Tim Elliott (5-3, 2.63 vs Jack Leftwich 4-4, 6-03); Sunday – TBA vs TBA
TV/RADIO: Friday-Saturday - SEC Network (Matt Stewart and Jason Jacobs); Sunday – ESPN2 (Tom Hart and Kyle Peterson); Georgia Bulldog Radio Network (David Johnston and Jeff Dantzler).
Pitcher Emerson Hancock offered up a revelation prior to practice Thursday afternoon. What had been described as soreness in his right arm hasn’t actually been his arm at all.
“It’s my right lat,” Hancock said. “It just kind of hurts on extension. It’s not my arm whatsoever.”
While that certainly qualifies as good news, the injury, which occurred during Hancock’s last appearance two weeks ago against Missouri, is still not healed to the point where it will allow him to pitch during this weekend’s key SEC series against Florida. It gets underway Friday night at 7 p.m. (SEC Network Plus).
“I’m getting better,” Hancock said. “I’m going to throw to live hitters (Friday), I’m going to throw today, but I think I’m a lot better than I was two weeks ago.”
The sophomore right-hander threw a bullpen session Tuesday night in Augusta prior to Georgia’s contest against The Citadel without incident.
For that, Hancock (7-2, 1.04) is hopeful he’ll be ready to go next weekend at Auburn.
“I feel a lot better,” he said. “I think I’m making a lot of progress. I threw really good in the bullpen on Tuesday. I was throwing my pitches for strikes: I think I’m going to be good to go.”
Hancock, of course, isn’t the only member of Georgia’s walking wounded.
Fellow pitcher C.J. Smith is bothered by a lower back injury and won’t pitch this weekend, while third baseman Aaron Schunk remains questionable after suffering a bruise to his Achilles/heel, which has forced him to miss Georgia’s last three games.
“The biggest part is just making sure those guys are 100 percent. Both of them are doing baseball activities. Emerson threw a bullpen in Augusta on Tuesday, and he threw the ball well. When he tells us he feels great, we’re ready to go. He said he feels good,” head coach Scott Stricklin said. “If it was a regional or Super Regional, he’s pitching. Right now, we’ve still got some time to go, and we don’t want this thing to linger. If he goes out there at 90 percent, then the next week he might go out at 80-85 percent, and we don’t want that. So, we’re going to knock this thing out and make sure he’s healthy and ready to go.”
Stricklin said it’s hoped that Schunk, who's on anti-inflammatory medication, could possibly be able to pitch at some point against the Gators.
“He’s throwing. There's a possibility he pitches, a smaller possibility he plays, but right now he’s questionable--day to day as far as the injury report,” Stricklin said. “But he’s been throwing off the mound a little bit to possibly be able to pitch.”
However, there’s still a few hoops Schunk, who leads the SEC with 11 saves, has to clear before he’s allowed back on the mound. “There are different pressures on the foot, and that’s the thing we have to find out, going down the mound, if that’s going to bother him or not,” Stricklin said. “He’s not a heavy heel striker. When he lands, he’s not heavy on his heel. Some pitchers are, but you’ve still got to cover first base, so those are the things you’ve got to figure out if he can do, but that is still in the realm of possibility as it is that he wakes up feeling great in the morning and he winds up playing third base.”
Although sitting out isn’t easy, Hancock knows it’s probably for the best.
“You have to look at it in the long run,” he said. “You want to be healthy for when we have a regional here, you want to be healthy for a Super Regional, the postseason, and the tournament. To push it now and put that in jeopardy, wouldn’t be the best thing to do.”
Georgia’s current circumstance as it pertains to the SEC helped make the decision to rest Hancock further easier to make.
Despite last weekend’s sweep by Mississippi State, Georgia (34-12, 13-8) is just two games behind Vanderbilt for the top spot in the SEC East and tied with MSU, LSU and Ole Miss for the second-best record in the SEC.
“Both these guys are really smart kids, and they understand the big picture. For our team, it's to be healthy when we get down to the final stretch. You can say this is the final stretch but to me, the last two weekends, SEC Tournament and Regionals, that’s the final stretch,” Stricklin said. “We want those guys to be 100 percent. If our circumstances were a little different, they might be out there. But we’ve put ourselves in a pretty good spot, and we need to make sure our best players are healthy when it matters the most and for us that’s going to be the postseason.”
NOTES: Sunday’s starter is listed as TBA for both Georgia and Florida (28-18, 9-12). A lot will depend on what happens in the first two games before Stricklin ultimately decides who will get the call. “It’s TBA, because we don’t know. It could be Cole Wilcox, it could be Zac Kristofak, it could be Ryan Webb, it could be Logan Moody,” Stricklin said. “It could be a lot of different guys, but they’re (Florida) in the same situation. They’ve got a TBA for the Sunday game as well, as do a lot of people. A lot of people have that because injuries do start to crop up at this time of year. We’re fortunate, that except for (Will) Proctor and (Tucker) Bradley, we feel confident that they’re going to be back and be back 100 percent very soon.” … All three games this weekend are listed as sellouts by Georgia, although tickets do remain on secondary outlets like StubHub. … The first 750 fans at Saturday’s game will receive a free replica baseball jersey.
