Sports

After a depressing loss to Kennesaw State on Tuesday and a rainout against the Owls on Wednesday, Georgia narrowly missed a chance to sweep the visiting Siena Saints, falling 10-9 this afternoon at Foley Field.

Nevertheless, a struggling Bulldog team did take two of three, pushing their record back to .500 and stopping an ugly 5 game losing streak. But Georgia is far from out of the woods, Georgia surrendered 7 runs on Saturday and 10 today… this pitching staff still hasn’t gotten it all together.

It’s also a little too soon to get excited about Georgia’s offensive numbers. While guys like Peter Verdin and Robert Shipman put on power displays this weekend, the Dawgs were largely helped by a poor pitching performance from Siena. The Saints issued 10 walks in Saturday’s game alone.

Still, its nice to see some runs cross the plate. Georgia doesn’t have the power potential they had last year and Georgia showed the ability to manufacture runs as well, including a great two-out RBI bunt single by Verdin in the Friday game.

I’d love to see Colby May get his stroke back, he’s going to be vital for Georgia’s success in SEC play. But, Peter Verdin and Zach Cone have put in extra work and made mechanical tweaks and it shows, both had a big big weekend, got to love that going forward.

Michael Palazzone had a great outing on Friday night, I’d like to see Perno stick with him as the lead off starter. Meanwhile, senior Jeff Walters continues to struggle in the first inning, giving up a 5 spot against Siena today. He’s going to need to find his stuff, or Perno has got to be willing to plug in someone else Perhaps Perno can turn to current closer Alex McRee? Especially if the closer is going to be preempted by Cooper Moseley in a bottom of the ninth save opportunity like this afternoon.

Player of the week: Robert Shipman 1b

I could give this one to Peter Verdin who really stepped it up this weekend, but Shipman was a menace in the line-up all week. As a defensive sub on Tuesday he had 2 hits in what was an otherwise abysmal offensive effort from Georgia. On Saturday, he had 2 big home runs and 4 RBI. In today’s contest he had another impressive long ball and showed a fair amount of discipline in drawing two key walks.

The week ahead

Tuesday will be a big big test as Georgia travels down to Atlanta to take on #4 Georgia Tech. The Jackets certainly won’t be a pushover, they’re 13-1 on the year and coming off a sweep of Wake Forest.

The Dawgs last contest against a top 10 opponent pitted them against Florida State. For those of you that don’t know, Georgia was embarrassed in three straight blowout losses to the Seminoles.

In the weekend set, Georgia welcomes in Auburn in the SEC opener for both clubs. Hopefully, the Bulldogs will deliver me a season sweep for by birthday (Friday, if you were looking to get me anything).

The Tigers are a typical SEC team with above average talent and an ability to surprise you. Georgia is going to have to come into this series with a lot more energy than they’ve expended in games against Alabama and Florida State. Georgia has all the talent in the world, they just need to play like it.

I won’t be live-blogging the Georgia-Georgia Tech contest this Tuesday, but I’ll be with you to provide some post-game news and notes. Of course, WUOG Sports will be back from break and bigger than ever… myself, or someone else, will try and be at all three games against the Plainsmen to live-blog all the sights and sounds of Georgia baseball.

Basketball is over folks. We all know you need something to do.