A great day at the plate and a strong first eight innings on the mound, allowed the Georgia Tech Baseball team to survive a ninth inning rally from Mercer on Wednesday afternoon.
Starting pitcher Cort Roedig pitched three strong innings for the Jackets in his first action of the season. He allowed just one hit over his three innings while also allowing two walks. Roedig wasn’t the only Tech pitcher with a strong outing as the Jackets bullpen tossing five shutout innings of their own before a tough ninth inning for John Medich as he allowed two earned runs on a hit and a pair of walks. Ben King would come on in relief of Medich and was unable to shut the door, allowing a third run before Luke Bartnicki was able to get the job done for the 7-3 win.
The four pitchers who combined for five shutout innings out of the bullpen were Joseph Mannelly, Jackson Finley’s Chance Huff, and Dal Smith. Mannelly was the only reliever to toss multiple innings, striking out three over two innings of work. Finely, Huff, and Smith all went one inning each.
The five shutout innings from the Jackets bullpen has to give head coach Danny Hall a feeing of relief, for now even with the struggles in the top of the ninth inning: After a rough weekend out of the bullpen, which relievers allowed 10 of the Jackets 13 earned runs against Eastern Kentucky, the Jackets pen against Mercer allowed just three hits over their first four relievers used.
At the plate, the Jackets got out in front of Mercer early on Wednesday, taking a 4-0 lead in the second inning on five hits, all singles. The four spot in the inning ended up chasing Mercer stating pitcher Tommy Green after just 1 1/3 innings of work. Green was charged with four earned runs on four hits and a walk. The Jackets bats, however, wouldn’t stop there.
The Jackets would add one run in the fifth on a Stephen Reid solo home run, his second of the season while catcher Kevin Parada added a two-run home run in the sixth innings to put the Jackets up 7-0. It was especially a big day for Parada, the freshman out of Pasadena, California was 4-for-4 at the plate with four RBIs in the game. He’s already up to six RBI on the season. If he continues playing at this level, he’ll force Danny Hall’s hand in handing him more starts. As a team, Georgia Tech collected their seven runs on Wednesday over 14 hits and four walks.
With the win over Mercer, the Yellow Jackets move to 3-1 on the season and will now get ready to take on the NC State Wolfpack this upcoming weekend in the start of ACC play.