Fashion
Georgia baseball wins 17th straight in comeback fashion vs Kentucky
Mar
Georgia baseball carried the nation’s second-longest winning streak into Friday night’s sold-out SEC opener with Kentucky at Foley Field.
The fifth-ranked Bulldogs extended their streak in comeback fashion, 12-6, by blasting three homers after losing pitcher Kolten Smith to cramping and second baseman Ryan Black to a quad injury.
“Everybody asks me what I thought the strength of our team is,” coach Wes Johnson said. “We don’t have (Golden Spikes winner) Charlie Condon, right, but we’ve got depth. We can move different guys in and out. You kind of saw that tonight on the mound (with six pitchers). Depth is big for us.”
Ryland Zaborowski, Henry Hunter and Robbie Burnett went deep and the Bulldogs’ bullpen closed out the game with six shutout innings.
Georgia trailed 6-2 after Kentucky, which is ranked 24th in Baseball America’s poll, batted in the third, but tied the game on a two-run blast from designated hitter Zaborowski to right in the fifth. It was the Miami (Ohio) transfer’s team-leading 11th homer of the season.
The Bulldogs (20-1, 1-0 SEC) went ahead in the sixth on a Burnett single to right that scored Slate Alford for a 7-6 lead and then added a two-run home run by Hunter under the right field scoreboard.
Righty reliever Dylan Radtke (3-0) got the win with a 1 1/3 shutout innings.
The 17-game winning streak is the second longest in school history behind only a 1908 Bulldog team that won 20.
The Bulldogs improved to 15-0 at home. Their only loss this season was Feb. 16 at UNC Wilmington.
Only Tennessee’s 20-game winning streak is longer nationally.
Smith left in the top of the fifth after his 45th pitch. A trainer and coach Johnson came to the mound with Raphael Pelletier still at the plate.
“Kolton was cramping in his left hip,” Johnson said afterwards. “It wasn’t anything arm-related. He kept telling me he thought he could get through and I just said, ‘No, it’s too big of a moment. We’re going to make a change right here.’ I’ll check with Zach,” he said, referring to trainer Zach Adams.
Smith, MLB.com’s No. 47 prospect for the MLB Draft, made his fourth straight relief appearance after starting Feb. 18. He lowered his ERA to 5.56 with 2 1/3 scoreless innings, striking out four, giving up two hits and two walks.
Smith was a late scratch as the opening day starter due to back spasms and then was sidelined by an illness.
Black was injured while grounding into a double play to end the second inning while running to first. The North Texas transfer, who is hitting .298 with 4 homers and 8 RBI, walked off the field slowly.
“It was his quad a little bit,” Johnson said. “I think he’ll be fine, but I didn’t want to take any chances.”
Starter Charlie Goldstein was pulled after just 1/3 of an inning and 26 pitches after walking the first two batters he faced, giving up a three-run homer to Cole Hage and hitting Dylan Koontz by a pitch.
Hage, the SEC’s third leading hitter and a transfer from Columbia, knocked a 79 mile per pitch over the trees in left field.
“I told our guys after the first, ‘It’s a long game. We know this. We don’t panic here,'” Johnson said.
The Wildcats added three runs in the third, all charged to Justin Byrd, who played nearby at North Oconee. Devin Burkes doubled to left and Patrick Herrera drove home two more on a single through the left side of the infield off Smith to make it 6-2.
Kentucky (13-3, 0-1) is coming off its first College World Series trip.
The Bulldogs landed Wildcats outfielder Nolan McCarthy in the transfer portal and hired assistant Will Coggin off Nick Mingione’s staff.
McCarthy smacked a two-out single to right in the first to drive in a pair of runs to make it 3-2 and extend his hitting streak to 11 games.
Burnett, the UNC-Asheville transfer, smacked a three-run homer off Tommy Skelding for his 10th round-tripper of the season over the trees in right-center in the seventh.
“I heard ‘hit a fastball’ so I was just hunting the fastball and then I got it, yeah, and hit it,” Burnett said.
He scored four runs and stole his team-leading 11th base of the season and went 2-for-3 with 4 RBI.
“Robbie had some professional at-bats tonight,” said Johnson, the former Minnesota Twins pitching coach.
Georgia will send righty Matthew Hoskins to the mound Saturday against lefty Ben Cleaver in a 2 p.m. game.
Georgia went 17-13 in the SEC and reached an NCAA Super Regional for the first time since 2008, were swept in a three-game series at Kentucky to open SEC play after the Bulldogs started 17-1.
“Opening weekend, Friday night, the team that beat us last year and we know how good they are,” Hunter said. “We were fired out to get up here and show how good we are.”
(This story was updated to add new quotes and information.)
