Perhaps Georgia overthought its matchup against No. 1 Arkansas Wednesday. Perhaps it was simply overmatched to start with. Whatever the case, the Bulldogs didn’t compete and gave the Razorbacks an easy path into the SEC Tournament’s third round, falling 11-2.
“That’s not who we are,” Georgia coach Scott Stricklin said. “We’ve been a tough and gritty team all year long and those first five innings I didn’t even recognize that team.”
Georgia chose to hold Liam Sullivan -- its best available starter -- for another day and went instead with left-hander Charlie Goldstein on the mound. Goldstein did not survive the second inning as he and Michael Polk allowed five walks and three hits in a six-run frame.
That was a theme that would continue throughout the game. Georgia pitchers had 14 walks and three wild pitches and the team committed three errors. It was the sixth time this season UGA walked 10 or more batters in a game.
How Georgia and Sullivan fare in Thursday’s SEC elimination game ultimately will tell the tale. Sullivan pitched an 11-strikeout, one-run gem in what ended as a loss in first career start against the Razorbacks on May 7 in Fayetteville. Sullivan (1-1, 3.82) has been Georgia’s most dominant starter since that outing. In his three SEC starts covering 16 1/3 innings, he has struck out 24 with just three walks while giving up 12 hits and five runs.
“We wanted Liam to be 100 percent and he would’ve been one day short of full rest,” Stricklin explained. “He is a freshman; he’s been in the rotation now for three weeks and we wanted to make sure he’d be 100 percent. Yesterday before our game we asked him how he felt and he gave us the ‘pretty good.’ That kind of told us.”
The Bulldogs (31-24) will play the loser of Wednesday night’s late game between Ole Miss and Vanderbilt in the second game of the day on Thursday, expected to start at about 1 p.m. (televised on SECN). Arkansas (43-10) will get the winner at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.
Arkansas pitcher Lael Lockhart (3-2) certainly deserves some credit for some of Georgia’s lethargy. The graduate transfer from Houston was a two-out, seventh-inning infield hit by Josh McAllister from throwing a perfect seven-inning game. Instead, Corey Collins followed McAllister’s single with a home run to right field to extend the game and avoid the tournament’s 10-run rule.
Instead of a perfect game, Lockhart got the win with 11 strikeouts and no walks and two hits over seven innings.
Five Georgia pitchers held Arkansas to just seven hits, just one of which left Hoover Metropolitan Park. But the SEC’s highest-scoring team was helped with three unearned runs. Georgia’s Josh Stinson, McAllister and Collins had the Bulldogs’ only hits and were the only UGA players to reach base.
With an elimination game next, Georgia has no choice but to let this one go now.
“Tonight was tough, really tough to swallow,” said pitcher Max DeJong, who pitched a scoreless inning in just his third appearance of the season. “But it’s a quick turnaround tomorrow and we’ve just got to bounce back and we’ll be all right.”
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