First, the night before a weekend series, for the last few years, I've tried to write up a detailed "report" of what we were going to see. A lot of that was for my own benefit, but I'd like to think that it served some small purpose beyond just me. I would normally spend 60-90 minutes looking up scouting reports, box scores, stat sheets, etc while writing up the preview. While I did enjoy doing that, frankly I just don't have the time to do in that degree of detail right now. So, I'm going to do my best to condense things this year and hit the relevant points.
So with that said, what can we expect for Ga Southern this weekend? Well, seeing as how I've misjudged this series three years in a row, I'm not sure that my thoughts carry a lot of water. The sweep in Statesboro last year was tremendously disappointing.... as deflating of a weekend as we've had since, probably, Florida State in 2010. In think there was some sentiment among casual fans last year that our team went to Statesboro resting on their laurels after having taken the series from Florida State the weekend before. While I certainly understand that explanation, I can say that everyone I talked to before the season indicated that Ga Southern, not Florida State, was the series they had circled. That was a very big deal to our team last year, at least that's the feeling that I took away. And I think that the reality of getting swept down there put us in a funk that we never completely got out of. For all the talk about the pitching injuries that weekend, the reality is that we only scored 6 in that entire series. Going into that series, I honestly thought that, given the way we were swinging the bats, that we had a good chance to score 30 runs on the weekend in their smallish park.
The good news is that they don't look nearly as deep this season, on the mound. They pitched better than I thought they would last season. We'll see a familiar face though tomorrow night in 4th year junior lefty Evan Challenger. He started all 14 weekends for the Eagles last year and posted a very impressive 2.03 ERA and in 80 innings had 58 K's against 22 walks while allowing only a .237 average to the opposition. Last season he worked 5 innings against us and allowed 2 runs, 1 earned, with 3 K's and a 1 walk. I remember that we didn't square him up very well, he did a nice job of allowing only soft contact.
No more Jason Richman. I got just about sick of seeing that guy the last couple of seasons.
Saturday and Sunday we are going to see a couple of true freshman. Saturday is a lanky right hander from Alpharetta named Chase Cohen. Sunday will be another righty from Richmond Hill named Brian Eichhorn. Southern's closer Chris Brown, who was very good against us last year, returns for his senior year. The righty carded 11 saves last season, including 3 against us. If you want an idea for what this series means to Ga Southern, just think about that. We had to finish game 2 on Sunday last year before playing the series finale later that day. Ga Southern threw Chris Brown twice in the same day, in February... The year before in the rubber game against us, they inserted their closer into a game they were leading by 14 runs and left him in to collect the final 10 outs. Expect Ga Southern to approach this weekend like a Super Regional from a pitching stand point. That kind of stuff is probably a very good reason why don't ever play in actual Super Regionals.
They don't have a whole lot coming back offensively. The Aaron Mizell character, who went 5-10 against us last year, has thankfully departed. We know that Ryan Cleveland can swing the bat, though we did a nice job with him last year, especially after Friday night. We should see Cleveland 3rd or cleanup this weekend. Going down the list, Ga Southern replaces their top SIX hitters (in terms of average) from last season. Southern hit 45 home runs as a team last year. 35 of those were hit by players no longer on their team.
Going down the list, it looks too like they will have to replace 37% of their innings pitched as well, though they do obviously return their Friday night guy, closer, and a couple of experienced relievers in Ryan Frederick (righty) and Anthony Paesano (lefty).
Three years ago I sat here and said "Friday night is their night" as they had an experienced guy starting Opening Night for them before going to a less experienced player Saturday and a true freshman (Jason Richman, actually) on Sunday. I thought we'd have a great chance to sweep if we won Friday night. Well, we did get the Opening Night win down there to start the 2013 season, and that marked the only time all year we were +.500. That inexperienced player Saturday was a kid named Sam Howard, who would go on to beat Florida State in a regional the next season before being drafted in the 3rd round. Then Richman transitioned to the bullpen and seemed to pitch every single game for them in relief (in reality, he appeared in 38 of their 57 games last season). So I guess it was deceptive to think that we had an advantage after Friday night. And maybe it's deceptive to think that this weekend too, but it really looks like we will.
This appears, on paper, to be Ga Southern's weakest team that we've played yet. They were pretty good in 2013 and I thought they were very solid when they came to Athens in 2014. We didn't pitch or defend particularly well in Stricklin's opening series, but Ga Southern really swung the bats and pitched well themselves. They took a step back from that last season, though they still pitched well.
With all the freshmen out there playing for them, and a few for us, you're going to see some early jitters and probably some sloppy play at times. This is a series that we should win, by the looks of it. I can't tell you how much I hate the fact that we are 2-7 against that crowd the last three seasons. I can't tell you how much I hate that so many of their fans, largely by virtue of the football game last November, are starting to view us a "rival".... We can't do anything about the last three seasons, and we're certainly not going to do anything like roll Bo Tucker out there in the 6th inning to shut down a game we lead by two touchdowns (nor should we), but it's very important that we begin to re-assert our position in the state. And that quietly started happening last year. We split with tech and really dominated them at Turner Field. We split with Mercer after they blew us out in the opener. We split with Kennesaw State. We beat Georgia State. Ga Southern was the dark spot in that category. Let's get that W this weekend and send those guys back to Statesboro (beating their chests about what they almost did in football)...
So with that said, what can we expect for Ga Southern this weekend? Well, seeing as how I've misjudged this series three years in a row, I'm not sure that my thoughts carry a lot of water. The sweep in Statesboro last year was tremendously disappointing.... as deflating of a weekend as we've had since, probably, Florida State in 2010. In think there was some sentiment among casual fans last year that our team went to Statesboro resting on their laurels after having taken the series from Florida State the weekend before. While I certainly understand that explanation, I can say that everyone I talked to before the season indicated that Ga Southern, not Florida State, was the series they had circled. That was a very big deal to our team last year, at least that's the feeling that I took away. And I think that the reality of getting swept down there put us in a funk that we never completely got out of. For all the talk about the pitching injuries that weekend, the reality is that we only scored 6 in that entire series. Going into that series, I honestly thought that, given the way we were swinging the bats, that we had a good chance to score 30 runs on the weekend in their smallish park.
The good news is that they don't look nearly as deep this season, on the mound. They pitched better than I thought they would last season. We'll see a familiar face though tomorrow night in 4th year junior lefty Evan Challenger. He started all 14 weekends for the Eagles last year and posted a very impressive 2.03 ERA and in 80 innings had 58 K's against 22 walks while allowing only a .237 average to the opposition. Last season he worked 5 innings against us and allowed 2 runs, 1 earned, with 3 K's and a 1 walk. I remember that we didn't square him up very well, he did a nice job of allowing only soft contact.
No more Jason Richman. I got just about sick of seeing that guy the last couple of seasons.
Saturday and Sunday we are going to see a couple of true freshman. Saturday is a lanky right hander from Alpharetta named Chase Cohen. Sunday will be another righty from Richmond Hill named Brian Eichhorn. Southern's closer Chris Brown, who was very good against us last year, returns for his senior year. The righty carded 11 saves last season, including 3 against us. If you want an idea for what this series means to Ga Southern, just think about that. We had to finish game 2 on Sunday last year before playing the series finale later that day. Ga Southern threw Chris Brown twice in the same day, in February... The year before in the rubber game against us, they inserted their closer into a game they were leading by 14 runs and left him in to collect the final 10 outs. Expect Ga Southern to approach this weekend like a Super Regional from a pitching stand point. That kind of stuff is probably a very good reason why don't ever play in actual Super Regionals.
They don't have a whole lot coming back offensively. The Aaron Mizell character, who went 5-10 against us last year, has thankfully departed. We know that Ryan Cleveland can swing the bat, though we did a nice job with him last year, especially after Friday night. We should see Cleveland 3rd or cleanup this weekend. Going down the list, Ga Southern replaces their top SIX hitters (in terms of average) from last season. Southern hit 45 home runs as a team last year. 35 of those were hit by players no longer on their team.
Going down the list, it looks too like they will have to replace 37% of their innings pitched as well, though they do obviously return their Friday night guy, closer, and a couple of experienced relievers in Ryan Frederick (righty) and Anthony Paesano (lefty).
Three years ago I sat here and said "Friday night is their night" as they had an experienced guy starting Opening Night for them before going to a less experienced player Saturday and a true freshman (Jason Richman, actually) on Sunday. I thought we'd have a great chance to sweep if we won Friday night. Well, we did get the Opening Night win down there to start the 2013 season, and that marked the only time all year we were +.500. That inexperienced player Saturday was a kid named Sam Howard, who would go on to beat Florida State in a regional the next season before being drafted in the 3rd round. Then Richman transitioned to the bullpen and seemed to pitch every single game for them in relief (in reality, he appeared in 38 of their 57 games last season). So I guess it was deceptive to think that we had an advantage after Friday night. And maybe it's deceptive to think that this weekend too, but it really looks like we will.
This appears, on paper, to be Ga Southern's weakest team that we've played yet. They were pretty good in 2013 and I thought they were very solid when they came to Athens in 2014. We didn't pitch or defend particularly well in Stricklin's opening series, but Ga Southern really swung the bats and pitched well themselves. They took a step back from that last season, though they still pitched well.
With all the freshmen out there playing for them, and a few for us, you're going to see some early jitters and probably some sloppy play at times. This is a series that we should win, by the looks of it. I can't tell you how much I hate the fact that we are 2-7 against that crowd the last three seasons. I can't tell you how much I hate that so many of their fans, largely by virtue of the football game last November, are starting to view us a "rival".... We can't do anything about the last three seasons, and we're certainly not going to do anything like roll Bo Tucker out there in the 6th inning to shut down a game we lead by two touchdowns (nor should we), but it's very important that we begin to re-assert our position in the state. And that quietly started happening last year. We split with tech and really dominated them at Turner Field. We split with Mercer after they blew us out in the opener. We split with Kennesaw State. We beat Georgia State. Ga Southern was the dark spot in that category. Let's get that W this weekend and send those guys back to Statesboro (beating their chests about what they almost did in football)...
