The title is obviously a joke as Bianco did an outstanding job of coaching this weekend. He apparently read my blog entry from Friday and decided he should "put up." This weekend's baseball recap is just after the jump...
Friday night was rough for me to watch. The Rebels looked silly defending the first at bat of the game as Miller bobbled the ball and recklessly threw the ball to first. E5. We sort of recovered, and Pomeranz pitched admirably, but it was all in vain when Goforth gave up the grand salami.
As I made my way to the stadium from Double Decker, I worried about Irwin's ability to mow down the Georgia lineup. Juco All American asked me if I thought we would win. I emphatically responded, "NO." Well, Saturday started even worse than Friday. After three innings, we were down 5-1, and if someone had asked me if I thought we were going to take the series, I would have said really bad words about Mike Bianco. We looked flat. We looked just plain awful. Then, something magical happened. Fergie hit a solo shot to make it 5-2, and Miller doubled to score Henry who had walked earlier in the inning. Just like that, it was a manageable 5-3.
We scored three runs in the fourth, and we were leading 6-5. I knew it was only a matter of time until Georgia struck again. They took the lead at 8-6 when Massanari hit is 3 millionth homerun of the day.
Somehow, we gutted out four more runs. The final two came on a Logan Power double (thrown out trying to make it a triple). Morgan magically appeared from the dugout, and he finished Georgia off for the victory. It was a thing of beauty.
Today, I knew we had a chance with The Bittler on the mound. He allowed one run and five hits over the first two innings, but he finished strongly and didn't allow another hit. In the 7th, fatigue was obvious as he didn't throw a pitch over 83 mph. I was amazed at his performance and how he silenced the Georgia lineup. He made Georgia's batters look sillier than Ivory Tower leading a "throw it in the dirt" chant.
The 6-1 win showed me a lot. It showed me we are serious about competing in the SEC. We're serious about making a run at Omaha. Not only do we want to host, but we're going to do our best to be a national seed.
What's next?
The Rebels (32-12, 13-8 SEC) have Southern on Tuesday night in Pearl and an Arkansas directional school at home on Wednesday. These are the last two regular season non-conference contests. Then, we travel to Auburn for a weekend stint.