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Technical Tidbits 5/17: Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate part three and a lesson in baseball history

In which the Jackets prepare for one last game at The Ted.

By edac46
Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

Georgia Tech baseball will have one final shot to avoid a season sweep at the hands of rival UGA tonight when the two teams face off at Turner Field for the last time ever. Burton Delaney will get the start for Tech against Georgia southpaw Andrew Gist, who brings a 3-2 record and 5.02 ERA into tonight's game. Gist, much like Delaney, has struggled at times off and on all season, with his cumulative statistics reflecting some pretty serious inconsistency. Tech's offense, a national force on a power streak of late, will almost certainly be there, but whether or not pitching will be able to hold its own remains to be seen for head coach Danny Hall. The bottom line is that a three-loss season against a .500 team in UGA is not a great look for a team fighting an uphill battle with the schedule. A win tonight would be big.

Speaking of Turner Field's final college baseball game ever, take a look at this interesting article from The Macon Telegraph detailing the history of Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate and its old venue at Luther Williams Field. The stadium, affectionately dubbed the Luthy Dub by writers who are too lazy to type its full name, is one of the most historical and significant in the state of Georgia. Once a filming site for the critically acclaimed Jackie Robinson movie 42, the Luthy Dub has now laid vacant since the Macon Pinetoppers played there back in 2010.

In some Tech alumni news, former Jacket and current Minnesota Twins prospect A.J. Murray had a phenomenal game the other day when he went 5-5 with a pair of homers for his minor league team.

Though he's not a top prospect for the Twins, 5-5 games are hard to ignore. Congratulations to A.J.!

Paul Johnson and the rest of the football coaching staff are hoping that a full offseason -- one with relatively good injury luck so far -- will be enough for the team to rebound after the horrific flop in 2015. A healthier team coupled with a significantly softer schedule should be enough for a solid bit of improvement this year, but how much improvement we should expect is a huge question mark. I see at least four wins on the schedule, but everyone (myself included) saw significantly more wins than that on last year's schedule; that bit of optimism, if you recall, ended with a 3-9 horror show. There should be ample opportunity to achieve bowl eligibility, but only if the Jackets can do what they didn't do in 2015: win where they should. That list of games starts with Boston College and continues on with Mercer and Vanderbilt in subsequent weeks.