2026 Baseball Season

[pancho]

Pitchers kept Phelps and Jackson down which prevented any emotional uplift. Oklahoma pitchers showed how to truly just trust your stuff and let it go and there weren't many mistake pitches for UGA to chomp on.

[Bulldogs4]

15 hours ago, pancho said:

Pitchers kept Phelps and Jackson down which prevented any emotional uplift. Oklahoma pitchers showed how to truly just trust your stuff and let it go and there weren't many mistake pitches for UGA to chomp on.

That was the key. They threw very few mistake pitches over two games. 

[rebmus]

Game 3 winner take all tomorrow. 

 

[Bulldogs4]

Oklahoma for the win. When the 64 teams were selected, I don’t think too many people had them on their Bingo Card and certainly not for a trip to Omaha and most certainly not to win the whole shablang!!!!

 

But they did it!!!

[pancho]

May need to start a new baseball thread.  The portal haul from state look impressive when combined the the returning pitching.

[Vott]

Southern Miss invited back to play in a tournament in Texas in 2027. Their opponents are UC Irvine Kansas and Oklahoma.

[Dawg83]

On 6/25/2026 at 1:20 PM, Vott said:

Southern Miss invited back to play in a tournament in Texas in 2027. Their opponents are UC Irvine Kansas and Oklahoma.

State and Ole Miss both in the same Arlington tourney next year as well. Dallas Baptist, UCLA, Wake Forest, Penn State also going to be there, not sure who is playing who yet (doubt State and OM play each other though).

 

On 6/25/2026 at 12:11 PM, pancho said:

May need to start a new baseball thread.  The portal haul from state look impressive when combined the the returning pitching.

Yeah they’ve done a really nice job of filling holes in the lineup. Hard to expect the offense to be quite as good as it was last year given how historically good Reese and Sullivan were, as well as others, but it doesn’t feel like they’ll have that much of a drop off. And you’d assume they’ll be better on the mound with all the experience and talent that is returning. Haven’t added as many portal arms as one might think, but I do think they’ve added a couple of nice bullpen options. When your whole starting rotation is returning, can’t imagine it’s easy to recruit portal arms who know they probably are not going to be starters here. And everyone wants to start in this era.

Edited Sunday at 10:42 PM by Dawg83

[Bulldogs4]

2027 should be another good year with a more realistic shot at going to Omaha.

With Coach O’Connor and the staff (except Parker who was already here) having a year under their belt, the continuity of the staff and players will be better. 
If you look at the beginning of the season, our lineup was quite different from what it was later in the year. Next February, I believe that we will have a more settled lineup, though with the depth we will have, it will give Coach the luxury of playing more guys situationally.  

As I mentioned previously on different occasions, we were a top fifteen team this year. Next year I think we can be a top ten team with the potential of winning it all. But we know how difficult that is to accomplish. 

[pancho]

What if any part of the drop off in the bullpen was due to Parker? were the guys simply not as good as their high ratings?

[Bulldogs4]

I will put more of it on the pitchers. Coach can prepare them but it is up to the pitcher to perform. Too often, wildness and inconsistency were our bullpen problems. I think we will see an improvement there next year. 

[Dawg83]

14 hours ago, pancho said:

What if any part of the drop off in the bullpen was due to Parker? were the guys simply not as good as their high ratings?

I think their older arms weren’t that good and their best arms were inexperienced.

 

Also the bullpen was hurt mightily by the combination of McPherson getting hurt and Charlie Foster (transferring to OM, BTW), being totally and completely unreliable. Duke Stone started the year as one of their top two bullpen options and pretty quickly had to become their Saturday starter. That definitely trickled down to hurt the pen in a negative way.

Edited 4 hours ago by Dawg83

[pancho]

It appeared late that they had 6 or 8 pen arms but had no confidence in any of them. Maybe all those guys were all hype and not good enough for that level of ball. 

[Dawg83]

39 minutes ago, pancho said:

It appeared late that they had 6 or 8 pen arms but had no confidence in any of them. Maybe all those guys were all hype and not good enough for that level of ball. 

I like Bauer and Miller, think they can become really good. Davis had moments but was inconsistent. Most of that group though, very blah. I think you could tell a month or two before the postseason that State’s season would end via bullpen failure, and that’s how it played out. Blew late leads in both of the Super Regional games.