Mistakes, missed opportunities cost Georgia baseball in first loss of 2020

Scott Stricklin said it to his Georgia team before Sunday’s series finale with Santa Clara: Good teams win series; great teams sweep.

An uncharacteristically sloppy performance Sunday led to No. 5 Georgia’s first defeat of the season, an 8-4 loss at the hands of the Broncos. Even though they won three of the four games over the weekend, the Bulldogs left the series with a sour taste in their mouths.

“We’ve got things to work on and get better,” Stricklin said after Sunday’s game. “Overall when you take a step back, winning three out of four is a very positive thing, but not very happy with the way that we played today. We’ve got to turn the page really quickly and get better to play on Tuesday.”

The sloppiness started in the first frame. The second batter of the game, Santa Clara designated hitter Austin Reyes reached on an error by third baseman Garrett Blaylock. He scored the game’s first run one batter later on a double from Bronco shortstop Jason DiCochea.

Georgia’s starting pitcher, junior C.J. Smith, then hit a batter following the double, then rushed a pick-off throw to first and threw it away. DiCochea came into score and the Broncos led 2-0 after one inning on just one hit.

“We make two errors and kind of gift wrap them two runs,” Stricklin said. “When you do that, you’re not going to win very many games.”

Despite Stricklin’s urgency for a sweep, that message might not have hit home for all the players. Freshman center fielder Ben Anderson said he thought some of his teammates “may not have been mentally ready for the game,” leading to the mistakes.

The Bulldogs did have a chance to tie in the bottom of the first, putting two runners in scoring position with none out. Anderson scored on a wild pitch, but Georgia couldn’t get shortstop Cam Shepherd in from third with nobody out.

That summed up the day for the Georgia offense, which went 2-for-15 with runners in scoring position and left nine men on base.

“We were just trying to have good at-bats,” Anderson said. “We hit a few balls hard, but just went right at them. It was a tough one. We’ve just got to keep swinging it and hopefully they’ll start falling.”

In the field, the sloppy play continued for all nine innings of Sunday’s loss. In addition to the two errors, the Bulldogs hit three batters, walked eight more and allowed two wild pitches and one passed ball. Those miscues led to three unearned Santa Clara runs.

While not an unearned run, Stricklin also believed the Broncos’ final run could have been avoided. Second baseman Dawson Brigman beat out what Stricklin called a “routine” double play ball in the ninth, stretching the lead to 8-4. The Bulldogs then got the tying run to the on-deck circle in the bottom of the inning.

“We’ve got to turn that double play and we just didn’t do it,” Stricklin said. “It gave them an extra run and now the difference between 8-4 and 7-4 — it’s a big difference because now the tying run is at the plate if it’s 7-4 and the pressure’s turned up a little bit more.”

By Stricklin’s metric, the Bulldogs are still just a good team. However, he thinks Sunday’s performance will prove to be an exception rather than the rule.

“You’ve got to play better than that,” Stricklin said. “If we play like we played today, we’re going to have some long days. I think there’s a lot more better days ahead than days like today.”

Next games: Georgia (7-1) hosts Kennesaw State at 5 pm Tuesday before a three-game series against Georgia Tech.