For the first time this season, GSU (32-14, 14-8 Southern Conference) dropped back-to-back Southern conference series — two out of three games to The Citadel on the road and two out of three to Furman at home.
Now that the 40-win goal in the regular season — a benchmark the NCAA Selection Committee takes into consideration when filling in the at-large regional fields — is out of reach, the bullpen feels like some of the pressure is off and the relief pitching can return to being the strength it was at the beginning of the season.
“There’s no point in stressing out now,” said relief pitcher Dexter Bobo, who has seen his ERA rise to 7.92 after his last two appearances. “We can’t reach 40 wins until the (SoCon) tournament, so we’ll just get back to having fun and not taking everything too serious. I think we kind of put pressure on ourselves by trying to win 40 regular-season games and guarantee the regionals. That just puts pressure on us to keep playing well versus going out and doing what we do.”
Early in the season, the bullpen of Bobo, Kyle Kamppi, Colin Snow, Charles Matthews and Michael Hester was instrumental in the Eagles’ hot start. Getting back to the basics has been the focus heading into the final two weeks of the regular season.
“We just need to get back to what we were doing earlier in the year,” Kamppi said. “Throwing guys out there in those situations, we were attacking early and being aggressive and now we’ve kind of gotten away form that. We’ll get back in it and hopefully we can get it back together.”
“We can look back at the beginning of the season,” said Bobo, “and know we’re much better than we’ve been playing lately.”
In the early going, it was the bullpen which kept the starting pitching confident. Lately, the roles have reversed. Georgia Southern starters allowed just 10 of Furman’s 24 runs in last weekend’s three-game series, including a two-run complete game Saturday by Jake Brown, the first by a GSU starter since 2007.
“Our starters have really been helping us stay in games lately, especially the few rough outings the bullpen’s had the last few games,” Bobo said. “The starters going long — Jake pitching the complete game and Chris Mederos going seven, eight innings almost every outing — that’s huge.”
The pressure of classes has also been lifted, as Friday marked the end of finals week. The Eagles now have the opportunity to focus solely on baseball.
“Going on the road and studying on the bus, it’s awful,” said GSU left fielder and leadoff hitter Ty Wright. “Getting up early in the morning — I had some eight o’clock classes this semester — makes you tired heading to the field. It’s over now and we have nothing else to concentrate on.”
After the rough eight-game stretch, the Eagles got a much-needed break from the field to focus on exams. Coach Rodney Hennon feels the breather will help in the long run.
“Sometimes you worry about exam week whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing,” said Hennon. “I think it’s been good to have a week off from playing — let the guys have a chance to get their legs back underneath them and kind of recharge a little bit before we get back on the road.”
Georgia Southern heads to Samford for a three-game SoCon series which starts with today’s doubleheader.
The Bulldogs (17-32, 9-18) have dropped three in a row heading into the series, including two-straight against The Citadel and a 9-3 loss to Georgia State.
They have lost eight of their last 11, trailing Furman by two games in the loss column and will be looking to steal the eighth and final spot in the Southern Conference tournament field.
Currently third in the SoCon, the Eagles have already clinched a spot in the field.
“We’re focused on finishing the regular season strong,” Wright said. “We’ll just wait and see what happens when we get to the tournament.”
Today’s doubleheader and Sunday’s game three each start at 2 p.m. The Eagles will stay in Alabama for a Wednesday game with Auburn before returning home to face Wofford in a three-game series to end the regular season.
Matt Yogus can be reached at (912) 489-9404.
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