Technical Tidbits 5/6

Over the weekend, Georgia Tech beesball won their second to last ACC series of the year against Virginia Tech, claiming two of the three meetings from the Hokies. The series victory brought the Jackets up to 28-20 on the season (14-13 ACC) and Tech will prepare to make a daunting trip to Charlottesville to take on the Hoos this weekend. The Cavaliers, #1 in the nation, boasts one of the best pitching staffs in the nation (number one staff ERA in the ACC at 2.27, good for seventh in the nation), headlined by ace Nathan Kirby, who leads the ACC in ERA (1.62), is tied for the lead in wins (8), and is third in the conference in strikeouts (80). To put that strikeout number of his into perspective, the Yellow Jacket leader in K's is Josh Heddinger with 46 on the season. The Jackets certainly have their work cut out for them if they want to pull off their second series upset of a number one team this season, but who says they can't? After all, the last team to win a series against the Hoos was Georgia Tech last season.

If you want to get your beeseball fix before the weekend series begins, there is always tonight's midweek game versus the North Florida Ospreys (don't know what an osprey is? I didn't either, just click here.) of the Atlantic Sun. The Ospreys carry a 20-24 record into the meeting and is led by the player with the nation's best batting average, right fielder Drew Weeks who is batting an impressive .451, a full twenty-two points higher than the number two batter in the nation and 126 points higher than Matt Gonzalez's team leading average for the Jackets. You can take a look at the North Florida view of the game here.

It has been announced that special teams coordinator Dave Walkosky has parted ways with the team. Under his direction, the Yellow Jacket special teams unit has been exceptional-- it was tied for second place in the NCAA in blocked punts and kept its great return game going despite losing one of the nation's premier return men in Jamal Golden early in the season. Walkosky, a Toledo graduate, had a sizable impact on recruiting the talent-rich mid-west and Ohio in particular by helping to bring in some key depth at a few positions from the upper mid-west and great lakes regions. The 2014 season would have been his fourth season on the sideline for the Jackets.

The next link for today comes from the GTSwarm blog, which examined the strength of schedule for Georgia Tech over the last seventy years. Rather than using just strength of schedule, GTNavyNuke uses power ranking to determine the true difficulty of each game and cumulative season; it takes into account strength of opponent, margin of victory, and where the game was played (home, away, or neutral). The entire article is extremely interesting and informative, but it is extremely difficult for me to summarize in a reasonably sized paragraph because the writer hits on so many different stats, situations, and happenings all in the same article. It is definitely worth your time to read, especially if you are one of the people who has a lot to say in regards to the strength of schedule in the ACC.

Daily Debate: Which is more of a must win game/series for the Jackets if they want to get to the NCAA tournament: vs. North Florida or at UVA? This may seem like an obvious question, but a loss to North Florida would mean that the Jackets have a 1-3 record versus A-Sun opponents and another loss to a team with a low RPI. One win versus Virginia and a win over NFU might even help their case more than a series win over UVA, but that is for you to decide.

Have a nice Tuesday.