Ga. State at GT Wrapup: Pounded Panthers

Georgia Tech played Georgia State in baseball on Tuesday night, and the results weren't pretty for the Panthers. The Jackets had booming bats all night, scoring 16 runs in the game. They had 17 hits in 8 innings of work and drew seven walks. In other words, it was an offensive firestorm featuring lots of subs and a symphony of "pings!"

The notable performances on the night weren't spread very thin. Sam Dove had another banner game with three hits, two ribbies, and two runs score. Freshman Matt Gonzalez has his first career home run and a staggering four RBIs. His homer wasn't a floater either, blasting over the center field wall and into the Rose Bowl. He had a good day defensively too with one putout, one assist, and zero errors. The rest of the team gave a good defensive performance as well, committing zero errors. There was a bobbled ball by Hyde and one by the Kyle Wren, but other than that it was all vanilla.

The pitching was the only area of any concern. The Jackets went through five hurlers, mostly in an effort to get backups some experience. Josh Heddinger got the start and ended up allowing four runs in five innings of five hit ball. He issued three walks. His performance in the fifth indicated that 70 pitches (he threw 80 in the game) is about his limit, as this is when he started issuing most of his walks and allowed half of his runs. Jonathan Roberts came on in middle relief. He played very well, throwing 1.2 innings of no hit ball. He's got good control of his pitches and can really make the ball move. Sam Clay came out for his first appearance as a situational pitcher. He did his job and got his man out to bring Jared Jillson to the mound. Jillson threw one inning of no hit ball and allowed none across the plate while walking none. DeAndre Smelter was last, allowing one run over the last inning. His performace was the most troubling, as he walked two guys in a row which brought the fifth Panther across the plate. Overall it was a good show by the Jackets and another good warm up game for the ACC schedule.