Georgia vs. South Carolina
Georgia typically goes with Mickey Westphal 1st, one of their senior leaders, but their true ace is Brooks Brown. As you can tell from yesterday, South Carolina was hitting the lefthanded Westphal's tailing fastball well. Today, they'll get an entirely different look facing the powerful righty, Brooks Brown.
34th overall pick in the draft, (compensational 1st rounder) this is a big righty that will sit at 94 all game. Last time he faced South Carolina, just a few weeks ago, he pitched very well going about 7 IP and giving up 1 earned run. His opposition from South Carolina, the same guy who will pitch today Mike Cisco, get lit up pretty good at this same Georgia ballpark.
But, it's not just Brooks Brown, who is Georgia's best pitcher, who didn't pitch yesterday. Their 2 ace relievers were able to be saved since they were losing by so much. Georgia has a better bullpen than South Carolina, in set-up man, Rip Warren, and stud closer Josh Fields. Fields is 93-94 with good movement. With these 2 guys in the pen, and a 1st rounder on the mound, you can expect Georgia to hold South Carolina's offense in check this game, while getting to Cisco.
South Carolina's rotation has been inconsistent this year, throwing Wynn Pelzer some in this spot, sometimes Cisco. Cisco should get the call today, and his last memories in Georgia shouldnt be happy ones.
Everyone notcied South Carolina's back to back x 5 yesterday. But they wont do that again today. Meanwhile, you had a Georgia lineup, quietly hitting the cover off of the ball. As crazy as South Carolina's hitting wa,s Georgia was able to hang 6 runs up on the board on 11 hits. So, they werent exactly getting shut down offensively. They have to feel good about having their best 3 pitchers going today, vs. a weak Carolina bullpen, and #2 starter that they lit up just a few weeks back.
Another thing to note is this Georgia team is playing at home. Georgia doesnt have as big of a home field advantage as Ole Miss, and such, but playing at home is still a big deal. Georgia swept South Carolina at home this year, just a few weeks ago, one of those games being the same pitching matchup today.
Georgia lost in their regional to FSU, and faced elimination, and battled back to beat FSU the next 2 games, to take their regional. So this team was faced with elimination just last week, and battled through it.
There are two things stopping me from putting more on this game:
#1) As I mentioned 100 times, South Carolina is a damn good tournament team. Eveyr year. Doesnt matter how good or bad they are, they make noise in the post-season.
#2) SEC games are wars.
Nonetheless, a solid 5* on on Georgia to take this game today, and even this series back up 1-1.