Stricklin ready for the challenge

It shouldn't be lost on us that Georgia's new baseball coach left his alma mater to take over our struggling program. And by this quote from his introduction yesterday you can already see he embraces challenges.

Stricklin has a catcher’s background and has been a pitching coach, so pitching and defense will figure heavily into his philosophy. Since the NCAA toned down bats, the three-run home run has diminished in importance in favor of the bunt and hit and run. Stricklin plans to use small ball but hesitates to call himself a small-ball coach.

“If you go back and watch that game at Kent State when we beat Oregon in the regional final — I’ve watched it several times, it’s fun to watch — we got a leadoff walk, a sacrifice bunt and a bloop single and we go to Omaha,” Stricklin said. “I don’t necessarily say that we play small ball. There’s times to bunt. But there’s times to hit and run. There’s times to steal bases. Putting pressure on defenses and keeping defenses guessing is important. If they know what you’re doing, it’s a lot easier to defend.”

Stricklin's challenges won't start and end with trying to beat Vanderbilt and South Carolina. He's already thrown into a fund raising campaign to renovate Foley Field as well as evaluating his roster against this week's MLB draft, which starts today.

And a tip of the cap to Coach Perno for reaching out to Stricklin. Things didn't work out the way we'd hoped under Perno's watch, but there's no question that Perno is a Damn Good Dawg.