Battle in Midtown: Radford Defeats Tech 3-1

The cold weather made it a bad night for baseball, and that showed at the plate for Georgia Tech.  The Jackets didn't get their first hit until the sixth inning, a no-out triple for A.J. Murray.  However, indicative of the rest of the evening for Tech, they failed to bring Murray home.  This wasn't all a case of bad bats for Tech though.  You've got to give it to Dylan Nelson who threw six no-hit innings and was perfect through the fourth inning when he walked three to give Tech their only real shot at any runs the whole game.  Nelson, a sophomore who made his first start this season, is poised for a good year after going 6-3 last year.  He earned a career-high six strikeouts and gave up no hits.

Tech had it's moments at the plate.  Their first hit of the game was Murray's triple, and they showed patience when they earned three walks in a row in the fourth.  However, this seemed to be the polar opposite of yesterday's game against VCU, when the Jackets got four hits and four runs on a better starting pitcher.  This kind of offensive inconsistency is to be expected from this year's beesballers, as almost half the offensive players were freshman today.  Defensively Tech had a bad a night as well.  They had two errors, one of which cost Tech a double play that would've ended the top of the fourth.  There were two errors overall in the game, but they came at key times and set up scoring plays.  All things considered, it was one of those games that you're going to have at the beginning of a season when you're starting many freshman and have lost your best pitcher with no real replacement.

Danny Hall also made some questionable decisions (in my opinion) tonight that didn't make much sense to me.  He took Devin Stanton out after he only gave up one hit, after he had gone perfect through 1.1 innings.  I didn't see as much bunting as I would've liked, it really seemed like the Jackets were trying to get back in the game with one swing.  With time, Tech should be able to find it's small ball game and get things going against tough pitchers.  Just one a' those games, I guess.