An avalanche of singles and dominant pitching produced a seismic rout at Turner Field. In the midst of a season gone astray, Georgia buried Georgia Tech 17-0 Tuesday night, the biggest Bulldogs win in the series’ 358 games since 1899.
“I was shocked,” Georgia coach David Perno said of reviewing the damage on the scoreboard at night’s end. Only a 25-1 Georgia win over Tech in 1899, the second game of the series, was larger in run differential.
The Bulldogs, battered by injuries and floundering well below .500, piled on 23 hits on the Yellow Jackets with nary a seeing-eye bleeder in the lot. Remarkably, only two went for extra bases as Georgia battered Tech pitching with a flurry of sharply hit singles from the first inning forward.
A crowd of 18,240 – the largest college baseball attendance thus far this season – witnessed the demolition in the annual fund-raising game for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. In stopping Tech’s three-game winning streak in the rivalry, Georgia also won its eighth game out of 11 against the Jackets at Turner Field.
Georgia (16-26) started with two runs in the second, followed by a game-breaking five in the third. If any one player provided a crucial base hit, it was center fielder and No. 8 hitter Justin Bryan in the top of the third. Ahead 3-0, Bryan and his .100 batting average took pitcher Josh Heddinger back up the middle to drive in a pair of runs for a 5-0 lead that began to loosen tension in the game. Bryan finished the game 3-for-5 with four RBI and one run scored.
Leadoff hitter Curt Powell and No. 3 hitter Hunter Cole were both 4-for-5. Twelve of the 14 Georgia players who came to bat either reached base or drove in a run. The Bulldogs batted around three different times. Tech coach Danny Hall used eight pitchers, including starter Jonathan King, in a vain attempt to subdue the Bulldogs.
“You just hadn’t seen (that type of production),” Perno said. “But we had production from Justin Bryan, who hadn’t done much all year (and) just really did a great job tonight. Zach Bowers, just everybody, but it’s contagious and guys just started feeling it.”
Georgia had not beaten a BCS conference opponent by 17 runs since a 20-0 win over Kentucky in 2010. Ironically, that was the same year that Tech demolished the Bulldogs at Foley Field 25-6, Tech’s biggest rout in the rivalry.
Said Perno, “I can’t tell you that there weren’t a couple seniors that mentioned that (game). They got a little revenge tonight, so I was proud for them.”
Georgia’s pitchers were almost as thorough in their thwarting of the Jackets as their bat-wielding cohorts. The Jackets (27-14) managed five hits, all singles, and struck out 13 times while getting on base via base on balls just once. Bryan Benzor started and got the win for Georgia with three scoreless innings.
They hardly did it against a lineup of weaklings. Tech is ranked No. 19 in the country by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and at one point this season led the nation in batting average, although the Jackets have taken a precipitous decline since then. Scalding the ball at a .351 clip after a late March series against Florida State, Tech has hit .261 since.
The Jackets have been shut out three times in the past 12 games. Tech had not been shut out in the 92 games prior.
“You’ve got to give them credit – they swung the bats, scored the runs, their pitchers shut us out, but we’re not playing Georgia Tech baseball,” coach Danny Hall said. “We’re not doing things we need to do – whether it’ son the mound, at the plate, in the field – to play good, sound baseball. So we’ve got to start doing that, or there’ll be more games like this because we’re not playing anybody easy the rest of the year on our schedule.”
It was Tech’s worst loss since a 23-3 defeat at the hands of another in-state rival, Georgia Southern in 2009. So thorough was the lashing Tuesday that Hall chose not to deliver any sort of message to the team after the game.
“There isn’t anything that needs to be said,” Hall said. “Certainly a bad loss and we just put it behind us.”
Indeed, Tech heads to No. 29 Clemson to try to stop its first four-game losing streak since 2009. The Bulldogs, meanwhile, have their own trial – a weekend series against No. 15 Arkansas. The Bulldogs, who have yet to win an SEC series this season, at least have 23 base hits’ worth of confidence to lean on.
“At one time this year, we had a pretty good stretch where we were hitting it and doing a pretty good job of pitching and defending the field, and it’s kind of bounced around, our struggles have,” Perno said. “Hopefully, they’re behind us and you’ll see a lot more of this down the stretch.”
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