David Perno fired Pitching Coach Brady Wiederhold after four seasons. This year, the Georgia Bulldogs had arms. Five Bulldog pitchers were drafted in the most recent MLB draft. However, the team had an absolutely absurd team ERA of 8.51 (8.48 in SEC play...so it was always bad...not just on weekdays) which was 12th best in the SEC. The 11th best pitching staff in the league had a team ERA of 6.92 and the 10th had an ERA of 5.88.
The low light for me was the 14 walk performance against Georgia Tech in Athens. The team had given up 12 walks before the end of the 5th inning, and the team's "closer" surrendered 3 consecutive walks after entering the game with the bases loaded.
When your ERA is 2.63 runs per game out of 10th place in your league, you're terrible. It would be different if there was no talent at that position. But that certainly wasn't the case.
I sincerely like Coach Perno, and I respect what he has accomplished overall in Athens. But this needed to be done. Badly. Rebuilding the pitching staff will take time, but this was the biggest no brainer termination in Athens in quite some time. Hopefully, more systemic changes are coming because there were problems with last year's team beyond just the pitching coach.
Onward and upward,
PWD
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