Georgia Tech\u2019s and Georgia\u2019s baseball coaches expressed polar opposite views on playing a midweek game at Truist Park on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
Tech coach James Ramsey sang praises about the teams\u2019 second-annual midweek neutral site meeting after a 14-4 run-rule win.<\/p>\n
Ramsey likened the top-five matchup to a College World Series atmosphere, as the teams played before an estimated crowd of 20,000 on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Truist Park does play very similarly to Charles Schwab Field, host of the CWS in Omaha, Neb. It\u2019s 335 feet to the left-field wall and 375 feet to the power alleys in both parks. Truist Park\u2019s right-field wall is 10 feet closer to home plate, and its distance to the center-field wall is eight feet shorter.<\/p>\n
The large bipartisan crowd and rivalry stakes also added to the postseason feeling on Tuesday night. Ramsey, a former Florida State outfielder who played in the CWS in 2010 and 2012, saw the midweek game as preparation for the postseason environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had moments like that, so for those guys to play in this white noise with the extra decks on top of the stands, big foul territories,\u201d Ramsey said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I told them in the pregame, I said, \u2018Hey, man, look around. You can\u2019t act like these people aren\u2019t here. You\u2019re going to have butterflies, you\u2019re going to have anxiousness.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cBut I told them to take it in, man.\u201d<\/p>\n
UGA coach Wes Johnson, who appeared appropriately frustrated after the team\u2019s fourth midweek loss of the season, was less enthusiastic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know that we get anything out of it. I\u2019ve said that for a while,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what we get out of it. This is cool, but I think it\u2019s actually the other way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson\u2019s heavy-hitting Bulldogs scored all four of their runs on three homers. They also had several deep fly outs that could have done more damage in a smaller park like Georgia\u2019s Foley Field.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at tonight and you look at the distances I just saw, we should have hit four homers if we were playing in a regular ball park,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI think it just actually evens the playing field, so I don\u2019t think we get anything out of it, really, at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Georgia Tech\u2019s leading hitter, Drew Burress, enjoyed the difference from playing on a smaller college field. MLB.com\u2019s No. 5 prospect for the 2026 draft class was 4-for-4 hitting with three RBI, a walk and a stolen base.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s good when you can play at a park like this,\u201d Burress said. \u201cYou think about Omaha, it\u2019s going to be the same way. We\u2019ve got to be able to win in big parks and small parks.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone\u2019s been able to see how talented this Georgia Tech team is this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both teams figure to have realistic College World Series aspirations this season. They\u2019re both leading their respective conference standings late in the season and are on track for top-16 hosting seeds in the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n
But in Georgia\u2019s first \u2014 and Georgia Tech\u2019s second \u2014 neutral site game of the season, the Yellow Jackets looked better in the bigger ball park.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, it is a little bit of a different game when you\u2019re playing in a in a big-time stadium where the fences are a little deeper, and the crowd\u2019s a little more dispersed,\u201d Burress said. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s important to have some trial runs like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Georgia Tech\u2019s and Georgia\u2019s baseball coaches expressed polar opposite views on playing a midweek game at Truist Park…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":681544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2289],"tags":[5,86216,648,2295,6555,1694,2341,3554],"class_list":{"0":"post-681543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-college-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-clean-old-fashion-hate","10":"tag-college-baseball","11":"tag-georgia","12":"tag-georgia-tech","13":"tag-ncaa","14":"tag-ncaa-baseball","15":"tag-rivalry"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116451921382596531","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}