Georgia Tech baseball found its stride once more last night, toppling rival Georgia State by a final score of 11-5 in Panthersville. Though a clean sweep of this week's out-of-conference games would have been more than welcome, claiming one of two from in-state teams is a marked improvement over Tech's ugly performances last week. We've more or less hit the home stretch for the season, so every win from here on out is extremely valuable. As it stands, the Jackets are 25-12 on the year and are ranked just inside the top 25 in terms of RPI. A postseason appearance likely hinges on how well the team performs in the coming days, starting tomorrow night at Clemson.
New head coach Josh Pastner is just over a week into the job but is already facing a number of difficult decisions, chiefly what to do with the remaining scholarships for the upcoming class. In the interview referenced by the AJC article above, Pastner makes it clear that he won't be offering any scholarships to players that he doesn't feel can contribute at a high level. This, at least in my eyes, represents a welcome change in philosophy from the Brian Gregory days -- the former Tech head man seemed to panic at times, bringing in guys of questionable capacity to fill spots once in a while. At this juncture, questioning anything that coach Pastner says as it related to recruiting would be immensely unwise. He has proven that he knows how to play the game.
In other news, coach Pastner now appears to be backtracking on his earth-shattering, anti-golf comments from last week after spending some time with the Tech golfing staff. It's beyond clear that Pastner (or perhaps someone else within the Athletic Department) was trying to make amends for the comment that rubbed a few people the wrong way, but the tweet comes off as either tone deaf or a bit desperate depending on how you look at it. Oh well. As long as no assistants were on the course there shouldn't be an issue.
Got some great tips from Coach Heppler today - Totally elevated my golf game #TogetherWeSwarm pic.twitter.com/Vjcv5pheN8
— Coach Josh Pastner (@GTJoshPastner) April 20, 2016
I hate to keep raising the expectations for everyone on Tech's defensive line like this, defensive end KeShun Freeman's potential impact on the team is just too much to ignore. Freeman, a rising junior, regressed a bit during his sophomore campaign after a freshman All-American performance in 2014 but figures to be much-improved this time around. All I can say is that if sacks were awarded for being an excellent person, Freeman would be J.J. Watt by now. He's an outstanding individual and a guy that we are very fortunate to have on the team.
Have a great Thursday!