ATHENS — Wes Johnson was searching for answers he knew simply weren’t there after his Georgia baseball team was eliminated from the NCAA tournament Sunday afternoon.
Johnson, a metrics whiz who has quickly emerged as one of the better head coaches in the nation, knew there was little consolation for his Bulldogs after their 11-9 walk-off loss to Oklahoma State.
Georgia led the nation with 144 home runs and went 30-4 in its home confines entering the postseason only to see the season end with two losses within a 24-hour span in NCAA regional play last weekend.
Sometimes in baseball, Johnson would have to admit, the numbers simply don’t add up.
“We fielded the ball better, we stole more bases, we broke the strikeout record, lowered our ERA, won 18 games in league play, won 43,” Johnson said when sharing what he said to his team to console a dejected group of players.
“We were a national seed. Obviously we didn’t get it done, but you’ve got to draw back on that.”
In time, there will be positive reflection on a 2025 Georgia baseball team that finished with the No. 2 ranking via the RPI and became the first at UGA to win a home series over a No. 1-ranked team since 1993.
But the fans exiting Foley Field on Sunday afternoon were understandably disappointed, frustrated and in shock by what they had witnessed.
This was a Georgia baseball team that seemed destined for what would have been its first trip to the College World Series since 2008, and a 20-4 win over Binghamton in the NCAA regional opener had done nothing to suggest otherwise.
But there, in the fine print for Saturday’s game, was a Duke roster loaded with left-handed pitching — a common bugaboo for UGA hitters this season.
Then, in Sunday’s elimination game, there was a 6-foot-5 Oklahoma State left-handed pitcher who was 10-1 with a 2.77 ERA — and a team stacked with power that hit 15 home runs through its first three regional games.
The NCAA Division I Baseball Committee had handed Georgia a curious seed — No. 7, five spots lower than its No. 2 RPI — and a tough draw to be sure.
Like the College Football Playoff selection committee, key members of the committee — Florida State athletic director Michael Alford representing the ACC and Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin representing the SEC — were not available to elaborate on what played out behind closed doors.
Still, as Johnson noted, Georgia won 18 SEC games in a conference that produced an NCAA-record 13 regional teams — the most SEC wins for the program in six years.
Johnson didn’t offer any excuses for the 6-3 loss to Duke or 11-9 defeat at the hands of Oklahoma State — Georgia had its chances in both games, and it didn’t deliver timely hits or sharp enough pitches.
“It’s eyelashes,” Johnson had said Saturday night, commenting on baseball’s nature of being a so-called “game of inches.”
The Bulldogs’ hitting, in particular, was off in the clutch.
Georgia was 1-of-8 with runners in scoring position in the loss to Duke, and five of those outs were by strikeouts. Johnson adjusted his batting order Sunday, but eight more runners were left on base, most notably in the top of the ninth with UGA clinging to a 9-7 lead.
Three batters struck out with runners on second and third base and no outs.
“You’ve got to do your job there,” Johnson said, “You’ve got to put the ball in play, (and) we didn’t do it.”
It didn’t add up this weekend, but collectively, Georgia baseball is as good as it has been in several years.
“We’re going in the right direction,” Johnson said. “There was a lot of people doubting if we could put up the kind of offensive numbers we put up after losing Charlie (Condon) and Corey (Collins) — we lost 100 home runs off a team that hit 151.”
Johnson doesn’t claim to have all the answers, even though his players believed he does.
“What you’re getting in Coach Johnson is someone that’s going to study the game and figure out how he can get you playing to your highest potential,” said Georgia All-SEC third baseman Slate Alford, who transferred from Mississippi State to play for Johnson.
“He knows more about baseball than anyone.”
Johnson knows that Georgia baseball must continue to get better and make the most of the $45 million stadium and facility renovations that have put the program on a level playing field with other SEC programs.
“We like our model, but obviously it’s got to improve because we’re in here now talking about this. So we have to do some things better, and we will,” Johnson said. “We’ll continue to find where we need to improve, and we’ll try to address those needs in recruiting.”
Off the top, Johnson noted he’ll need starting pitching that can go deeper into games and a more comprehensive offseason after last year’s facilities upgrades kept the team from practicing on a regulation field until late January.
The faces and names will certainly change, but the expectations Johnson has created for Georgia baseball will not change.
“On paper, I like where our roster is,” Johnson said. “What we’ve got coming in and what we’ve got coming back. … We’re going to have some in the portal, but it’s such an ebb and flow as to what’s going on.”
Johnson doesn’t have a crystal ball, but if he did, he’d be poring over it like he does every number, every statistic and every grain of film before every game to put his team at a competitive advantage.
Baseball is a game of metrics, even if the Athens Regional served as a reminder that sometimes the numbers don’t add up.
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