Diamond Dogs Preview: This Weekend's Sweep Will Be Brought to You by Louisiana State
by T Kyle King on Apr 1, 2010 4:00 PM EDT
in Baseball
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PrintThere are some hopeful signs for the Diamond Dogs heading into this weekend’s series against Louisiana State. Justin Grimm, by far the top performer among the Georgia starters, is scheduled to pitch Friday’s outing. Of the eight losses in the Classic City Canines’ last ten games, six were by a lone run, and the Red and Black were much improved against Mississippi State, boasting a .336 batting average, a 6.66 earned run average, and a .973 fielding percentage against the Western Division Bulldogs.
Don’t you believe it for a minute. We’re doomed.
Georgia travels to Baton Rouge to take on LSU at Alex Box Stadium. The Tigers are the defending national champions, are ranked in the top five in every poll, and boast a 20-3 overall record and a 5-1 ledger in conference play that offsets exactly the Bulldogs’ 1-5 league mark. The Bayou Bengals hold a 55-17-2 all-time series lead on Georgia, and Louisiana State has won fifteen of its last sixteen regular-season SEC series. The Athenians were the last conference opponent to take a three-game set from the Pelican State Panthers in Baton Rouge, going 2-0-1 there two years ago against an LSU squad that was starting to peak and has not since begun to fade. To top it all off, Anthony Ranaudo is back and Saturday is Skip Bertman Day.
Rarely have the stars been so perfectly aligned for an absolute train wreck. There is only one suitable suggestion:
Go ‘Dawgs!
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Nothing personal...
…but we’re gonna kill y’all this weekend. But we’ll give you food and beer, so it works out okay, The good news for you is that Ranaudo probably won’t go more than 4-5 innings. And the jambalaya will be tasty.
We’re still mad about that tie. That’s what kicked off the big win streak two years ago. I’m not even remotely kidding. That tie still ticks me off. Revenge this weekend.
(Yes, we LSU fans are psychotic regarding baseball, why do you ask?)
Fake Pundit. Real Fan.
http://www.andthevalleyshook.com
I know I'm going to regret asking, but . . .
. . . what, pray tell, angers you about the tie? and what about last year’s series victory by the Tigers over the Bulldogs made it inadequate as revenge?
Beyond that, good luck, and try reading a little Churchill, will you? “In victory, magnanimity; in defeat, defiance.” I don’t believe Winston ever said anything about coming to the other guy’s house in advance and trash-talking just to be an asshole about it. I mean, come on, Poseur, you have more class than that, and I’ve certainly done nothing to warrant that kind of bush-league bullshit.
Go 'Dawgs!
I let poseur give his own reason
but my personal beef is that UGA had the last ever opponent series win in the Old Box, which is currently in this state:
I’m big on revenge for the dead.
Managing Editor/Chief Lackey-And The Valley Shook
All right, that makes sense . . .
. . . but it was two years ago, in a year that the Diamond Dogs were the national runners-up; it’s certainly no dishonor falling to a Georgia team as good as that one, and LSU had a fine season in its own right. (If memory serves, the Bulldogs won the regular-season SEC title and the Tigers won the SEC tournament title.)
Beyond that, though, I don’t understand the talk of “revenge” now. A year ago, Louisiana State came to Athens and beat a Georgia team that had been playing pretty well up until that point. What was insufficient about defeating the Diamond Dogs at Foley Field, and what does the tie game have to do with it?
As the above posting makes perfectly clear, I fully expect a sweep every bit as lopsided as the Auburn series, and I respect LSU fans’ commitment to college baseball; I hope it’s clear that I am among the more devoted bloggers when it comes to covering college baseball. When wondering whether Georgia could perform at the highest level in our oldest varsity sport, I turned to LSU fans for their advice because of the Bayou Bengals’ excellence in that arena.
In short, I appreciate and respect the intensity of Louisiana State fans about a sport for which their enthusiasm is warranted, and I apologize for my language before, but, frankly, it ticked me off to have a colleague come around here and talk that way when I had done absolutely nothing to warrant it.
Good luck this weekend.
Go 'Dawgs!
Kyle....
… this colleague was joking. No offense was intended.
But really, the 2008 Georgia tie was a key game for LSU. LSU held a 7-run lead after six innings, and promptly managed to choke the whole lead away. The only thing that kept LSU from losing that game was the travel rules.
The tie dropped LSU to dead last in the SEC at the time, and it seemed like a lost season. LSU wouldn;t lose another game until the UCI series (which we won). The 2008 Georgia series was really one of the worst series for LSU fans in the last five years. It was a total disaster at the time. In retrospect, it was what finally got LSU baseball back on track. That series completely and totally sucked.
The “revenge” thing was a joke. We hold on to bitterness for a very long time around the Box. Hell, there are still LSU fans mad at USC baseball for 1998. That sucked, too, by the way.
It’s a shame that UGa is having a rough baseball season. Y’all deserve better. Georgia is one of the premier SEC baseball programs, and I never like it when an SEC power is down.
Except Mississippi State. Then it’s funny.
Fake Pundit. Real Fan.
http://www.andthevalleyshook.com
My bad, Poseur
Sorry for misinterpreting you, and for reacting badly, besides.
Thanks, and good luck. If we win one game and avoid getting utterly embarrassed, I’ll be happy. I’m not holding my breath waiting for those things to happen, though.
Go 'Dawgs!
No problems
I apologize as well. I was trying to make fun of LSU fans and our near psychotic behavior, not Georgia. It’s a writer’s fault if he is misinterpreted for not making his point clear enough, so my apologies.
It’s really hard to explain The Tie. At the time, it felt like we were gonna be in last forever. It really had nothing to do with Georgia, it was blowing a 7-run lead in a must-win game to fall into dead last in the SEC. It sucked. That whole series was devastating.
Bad years suck. I feel for y’all. Don’t worry, you’ll be back. Georgia baseball is too good to stay down for long. And who knows? Baseball’s a funny game. LSU only lost one SEC series last year… to Tennessee, who finished 12th. If history’s any guide, Georgia can certainly win this series.
Fake Pundit. Real Fan.
http://www.andthevalleyshook.com
Thanks
I prefer your view to mine, which is that nothing related to University of Georgia athletics will ever be good again.
Go 'Dawgs!
My want for revenge is more of an internal matter
That Saturday loss is burned into my brain very sharply. I don’t live close to BR so I only attend a few baseball series in person a year. The UGA series that year was the same weekend as the spring game and a few of my football tailgating friends and i made a day of it. I knew going into it that it would also likely be the last game i personally attended in the Old Box, which it was.
After spending the morning and mid-day baking on the concrete in TS (football in mid-April in Louisiana, great for training, horrible for attending) I headed for The Box and found a good seat near the student section on the right field line. The game went well enough, but the dawgs slowly pulled away, building a big lead one and two runs at a time. Down 7 in the bottom of the 8th it looked lost, but we miraculously scored a few runs and then Hollander whacked a triple with the bases loaded to tie it. What was left of the crowd went nuts and it felt like we were finally gonna have one go our way.
Then UGA scores one off a short hopper to right and puts us out in order in the 9th. It was a gut punch.
Now the rest of the season more than pushed that bad memory out of mind (Game 2 against UCI to give us all one more day in The Box is in my top 5, ahead of alot of CWS games) But as the demolition photos started coming out in the last few weeks I was reminded that my last in-person memory of the old box was such a crappy one.
It’s not UGA’s fault, we probably would have lost to any SEC team that weekend. But ya’ll were there, so my admittedly completely unjustified need for revenge stays.
Managing Editor/Chief Lackey-And The Valley Shook
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