Takeaways from Georgia's weekend series against Auburn

Georgia has been dominant so far this season.

No, it’s not 2021 or 2022. I’m not even talking about football. Get your mind out of the gridiron for a minute. Those teams ‘went to Jared’.

No, Georgia’s baseball team is 28-2 and knocking on the door for the No. 1 ranking in the land of college baseball.

They sit atop the SEC standings through three weekends of play.

It feels kind of familiar, right?

There is a lot of baseball to be played. The Bulldogs took care of No. 11 Auburn over the weekend. It was an abbreviated weekend.

The Bulldogs and Tigers were supposed to play today but rain forced the two teams to play a doubleheader on Saturday. Georgia won that too.

After that series, a few things came to my mind. The first is that this team is a real contender and threat to anyone in the country. That was the case four weeks ago, but we got a better look at why.

Georgia can win without its stars

Georgia swept Auburn without pre-season All-American Tre Phelps in the lineup. The star sophomore missed the series with a hamstring injury. Ryan Black was out for most of the three games as well. He did make an appearance in game three on Saturday.

No harm, no foul. While I do think it is harder to win without those guys, it’s not impossible. Georgia also did not get the normal production from NCAA home run leader Ryland Zaborowski.

He had plenty of hits in the games. Zaborowski just didn’t hit a ball out of Foley Field this weekend, which is an unusual circumstance. No, Georgia struck opportunistically and pitched their way to three wins.

Georgia hit their share of home runs and they scored a total of 24 runs eventually. It didn’t come easy. Georgia worked situationally, earned walks and struck with a big walk off from Dan Jackson to close the weekend.

The pitching got glimpses of brilliance from a few areas, which brings us to the next takeaway.

Georgia has an ace

His name is Brian Curley. Curley burst onto the national scene early this season. He did so with his antics and by coming out of Georgia’s bullpen. The last two weeks have seen him establish himself as a starter.

In two starts, Curley has thrown 10 innings, allowed seven hits, struck out 11 batters and allowed four total earned runs. With his power and movement, Curley has a chance to be a force for Georgia in any big game they come across in a tournament-like scenario.

‘Having an ace’ doesn’t just mean the guy who starts the game. Georgia flashed a combination of bull pen arms that are capable of erasing chunks of games. Kolten Smith came out of the bullpen on Friday night and struck out eight men in four innings of work.

If Georgia runs into a must-win scenario and goes Curlely to Smith and you’re faced with that potential as an opposing team, that’s a formidable ask.

That isn’t to mention power arms like Matthew Hoskins, Jordan Stephens, DJ Radtke, Alton Davis and Brian Zeldin who can slam a door with 95-plus mile per hour stuff.

They’re old

Georgia has an older team. Eight of their regulars are juniors or older. There’s an old soul about this team. They like baseball and they approach it that way.

There is a lot of new age baseball about the way this group plays, but hearing them talk and watching how the same their routine is before every game highlights that they are like an old dog, stuck in their ways.

They lean on what works. In other words, in a time of chaos in big games and in unfamiliar settings, Georgia has the chance to be calm and safe in their own skin.

That was apparent this weekend. Georgia warmed up the same way for game one on Friday night that they did at 10 a.m. ahead of an 11 a.m. start which looked the same again at 3 p.m.

‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks’.

I’d contest that you can make those tricks turn into a new outcome. Georgia’s lone national championship banner reads ‘1990’. Here we are 35 years later and Georgia should be thinking big, like ‘he went to Jared’ big.