After eliminating Alabama in yesterday’s 14-2 rout in Omaha, Texas gets another crack at Georgia with the season on the line. The Longhorns suffered a 7-1 loss to the Bulldogs in their CWS opener on Saturday, but Adrian Rodriguez hit for the cycle and Ruger Riojas had six solid innings on the mound to get Texas (46-14) to today’s elimination game against Georgia (52-13), which lost its winner’s bracket game against Oklahoma on Monday, 4-3.
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Texas is giving the ball to Luke Harrison (6-3, 4.29 ERA) for tonight's elimination game. Jim Schlossnagle mentioned after Monday's win over Alabama that he liked the Longhorns getting through two games without having to use Harrison, Sam Cozart or Thomas Burns, while Brett Crossland only went 0.2 innings and threw 14 pitches against Georgia on Saturday and didn't pitch against the Crimson Tide.
Other than Riojas and (presumably) Dylan Volantis, Texas has every arm it would otherwise want to use available to go against the Bulldogs.
Georgia will counter with Dylan Vigue (4-1, 4.73 ERA), who has struck out 69 batters in 59 innings, walking 34 and hitting 11, with 12 of his 48 hits allowed going for extra bases (seven doubles and five home runs). Vigue had a 2.63 ERA after going six innings against Florida on April 11, but he's struggled since leaving an April 17 start against Arkansas with forearm tightness.
Since then, Vigue has allowed 24 hits and 19 earned runs in 16 innings.
The good news for the Bulldogs is that with Joey Volchko and Caden Aoik going the distance against the Longhorns and Sooners respectively, Wes Johnson has a full complement of arms to bring out of the bullpen if Vigue gets in trouble.
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