When you hear Alabama vs Georgia, you immediately think of the SEC football championship and national championships. But for right now, we’re talking about the battle on the diamond that happened this past weekend.
Coming into this series, there was no reason to think that the Georgia Bulldogs would win this series, let alone sweep the Alabama Crimson Tide after the Bulldogs got swept brutally the prior week at Kentucky and the Crimson Tide took 2 of 3 vs No. 5 Tennessee at home. Georgia however, turned a lot of heads in this series.
The Bulldogs’ bats and power has been in question coming into SEC play with the incredibly light non-conference schedule they played. In week one of SEC play, they lost 16-10, 9-3, and 12-2 to the Wildcats who pretty much shut down one of the best hitters and home run leader, Charlie Condon, and doubled the Bulldogs in homers. UGA and their 1st year head coach, Wes Johnson, and the squad turned things around immediately with a 4 game heater after a 18-6 midweek win over Wofford and a 9-5, 6-5, 10-5 sweep of the Tide.
The bats resparked their flame versus a bottom-mid ranked Alabama pitching staff. Outside of Friday night starter Ben Hess (who the Bulldogs lit up, going 4IP, 7H, 5ER, 6K, 1BB) and Saturday starter, Greg Farone, the Tide has struggled to find consistency on the mound, especially on Sunday. Sunday was one of the biggest bullpen games you’ll see in an SEC series, where 7 different pitchers took the mound for Alabama and combined for 8IP, 13H, 10ER, 6K, 3BB.
Not having a staple Sunday game three starter in the SEC makes it very tough to win a series. So far this season, four different players have started outside of Hess and Farone, Zane Adams leading those with 5 but didn’t start on Sunday. The starters and relievers have statistically been nearly identical in several key stats except for runs per game where the bullpen allows 3R/G compared to the 2.08R/G the starters allow.
On the other side, the Georgia pitching staff has been a few spots below the Alabama staff statistically, but they gave their team a chance each game this series. Charlie Goldstein going 5IP, 8H, 5ER, 4K, 1BB on 93 pitches, Leighton Finley going 5.1IP, 4H, 3ER, 2K, 3BB on 83 pitches, and Christian Mracna going 4.2IP, 5H, 1ER, 7K, 4BB on 98 pitches.
With how powerful the UGA offense is, they have the chance to get by and be middle of the pack in the SEC but not with the elites of the SEC. In the series, these were the stats vs the Alabama offense: 27IP, 32H, 15ER, 23K, 13BB, 1.67WHIP, .294AVG, .523SLG, .896OPS. Head & pitching coach Wes Johnson needs to continue to improve the pitching if they want to go deep in the postseason.
The Crimson Tide bats struggled a bit more versus a lesser pitching staff in Georgia than they did the prior week vs Tennessee and a much better pitching staff statistically. Only scoring 5R/G (runs per game) with a .294AVG, .523SLG, and .896SLG versus a bottom third caliber staff is concerning a bit and won’t win you a lot of series in the SEC.
After a great weekend series win vs a top 5 team in Tennessee, a tough sweep at the hands of a currently unranked Georgia team on the road should be concerning. Alabama has South Carolina this upcoming week at home and then travels to Lexington to face Kentucky. This is a fantastic time to really figure out, resolve, and improve the pitching as well as the offense outside of the two headline stars, Gage Miller and TJ McCants, that have been the majority of the Tide’s offensive production.
Miller and McCants lead the majority of their offensive categories. Miller: .433AVG (1st on team), .856SLG (1st), 1.356OPS (1st), 11HRs (1st), and 18XBH (2nd). For McCants: .359AVG (3rd) .767SLG (2nd), 1.204OPS (2nd), 10HRs (2nd), 21XBH (1st). Evan Sleight isn’t far behind production wise but if they can get a bit more offensive production outside of those names, that’ll really support the pitching staff and help them win more close games.
In conclusion, this series was a much bigger win for Georgia versus the then No. 11 ranked team in the country in conference play, especially with No. 5 Tennessee on the road next and after their upsetting series where they got swept on the road by an unranked Kentucky.
I believe this will be an important series for both teams looking back come May.