There’s a time-honored cliché that describes baseball as a game of inches.
The person who came up with that verbal gem must have been talking about games like Georgia’s 4-0 loss to Vanderbilt in Sunday’s series finale.
With the wind blowing in, the Bulldogs hit six balls to the warning track, but not one made it over the wall. On a typical spring day, who knows?
“I thought we barreled balls up,” Georgia head coach Scott Stricklin said. “We just hit them too far in the air and the wind caught them.”
Commodore starter Carter Holton (6-3) wasn’t complaining.
The freshman lefty was a grateful recipient of Mother Nature’s blessing by using the conditions to limit the Bulldogs to four hits with two walks and five strikeouts before coming out after a leadoff single in the seventh by Corey Collins.
It was just one of those frustrating days.
Holton’s first pitch of the game to Ben Anderson was laced to right-center field before dying at the warning track.
Parks Haber, Fernando Gonzalez, and Josh McAllister later hit would-be bombs that looked as if they may fly out before falling just short.
“I hate saying if and almost, would of, could of,” Stricklin said. “I hate saying that. It is what it is. We just didn’t play well enough to win.”
Vanderbilt jumped out to a quick lead on a 2-run homer by Dominic Keegan, his third of the series, one in each game.
However, Bulldog starting pitcher Liam Sullivan (3-3) would settle down.
After taking 61 pitches to get through the first three innings, the sophomore retired six straight before Jack Gowen took over to start the sixth.
It did not go as planned.
Gowen gave up a two-run double to Javier Vaz to push the lead to 4-0.
“Liam wanted to go back out for the sixth,” Stricklin said of Sullivan, who was at 92 pitches. “But we hadn’t used Jack Gowen yet. He was fresh, it was Liam’s third time through their lineup. We talked about it. Liam wanted to go back out, but Coach (Sean) Kenny and I decided to put him out there. He’s been our best guy, and that’s what we wanted to do.”
Meanwhile, Holton limited Georgia to three hits over the first three innings.
It wasn’t like the Bulldogs failed to make good contact.
Georgia batters hit five balls to the warning track, only to see them die just short of the wall.
The Bulldogs would also waste a grand opportunity in the bottom of the sixth.
With Holton scuffling with his control, Georgia loaded the bases with just one out bringing up Chaney Rogers.
But the Bulldogs failed to score.
Holton struck out Rogers on three straight breaking pitches before getting Gonzalez out on a fly ball to center, ending the inning.
“We’ve been struggling with the bases loaded,” Anderson said. “We’ve just got to figure out how not to make the moment bigger than it is.”
Sunday’s loss was a big one for the Bulldogs (33-16, 13-11), whose hopes to host a regional took a momentary hit.
Georgia is now just one game ahead of Vanderbilt (31-15, 12-12) for third place in the SEC East ahead of this week’s series at top-ranked Tennessee.
The Bulldogs will follow that up by hosting Missouri in the final SEC weekend of the year.
