Yesterday the Diamond Dawgs threw out the first pitch of the 2026 NCAA Baseball Season. Pre-season rankings have the Dawgs all over the map.
D1Baseball Preseason Top 25: UGA is 15th.
Baseball America: No. 6
USA TODAY Coaches Poll: No. 13
NCBWA (National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association): No. 13
Perfect Game: No. 15
UGA Athletics has released the @BaseballUGA Yearbook, you can peruse it here and familiarize yourselves with all the new faces and catch up with returning starters:
The Dawgs hosted Wright State yesterday with second team pre-season All-American Joey Volchko on the mound. Volchko went 4 IP with 2H, 1R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5K, 67 TP. Dawgs took advantage of Wright State’s starter having to leave in the first inning with some discomfort to tally 13 runs to just the one that Volchko gave up. Game was run-ruled after 7 innings with the Dawgs up by 12. WS burned through several pitchers in their pen and may be at a disadvantage for the doubleheader today.
At 1:00pm on ESPN+ today, you can tune in to the doubleheader as the series against Wright State wraps up. Sunday’s game was moved to today due to incoming, inclement weather. Kenny Ishikawa and Dylan Vigue are tapped to start today. The order of their starts may be affected by the doubleheader, guess we’ll see who takes the mound at 1300 today.
We get about a month of out of conference tune-up games before hosting Lulu & Junior at Foley Field on March 13th to kick off the SEC slate. You can view the full schedule here: 2026 Baseball Schedule.
Baseball is firmly entrenched with my family as one of our favorite sports right behind football so, we’ll be tuning in all season and plan to make a trip or 2 to Athens this season. How many Refugees are baseball fans? Do ya follow the Diamond Dawgs or just read about them in the papers?
Go Diamond Dawgs!
Season ticket holders for 22 years. Love the games. Yesterday was beautiful. Of course the athletic department took our seats of 22 years away when we got re-seated for all those fair weather McGoofy society football fans. Oh well. Apply Vaseline and take a deep breath!
Money talks and itโs bullshit. True fans deserve better.
i sure hope all the NIL bling around their neck doesnโt impede their swings or concentration.
i remember when UGA baseball didnโt even provide batting gloves.
We were given shoes every year, but purchased our own gloves. We were lucky the bats were provided to us…
Just a bunch of mercenaries wearing our gear for a season. Pass.
Watch and try to go to couple of games. Try to get a weekend to see both baseball and softball. Gonna wait until l know it wonโt be too cold! Baseball like football like basketball, the man said it well. Get out the Vaseline!!
May 8, 9 & 10 could be epic…and telling.
BTW…Kyle Farmer is finally going to be playing in a Braves uniform! He signed a minor league contract, however I expect to see him with the big club once the season gets underway.
Love college baseball and it is the reason I subscribed to ESPN+ years ago. The Diamond Dogs should be very competitive again this year with an upgraded pitching staff and the addition of some contact hitters through the Portal.
Would I prefer the team be good and built via HS recruits? Of course, but that isn’t the game anymore so I don’t feel like you can blame the kids for the system or Wes Johnson for taking advantage of it. Johnson has been very active in the Portal, but most of them are guys that started at smaller programs and transferred. There are a couple of freshman that will be contributors this season too like Peebles and Cole Johnson.
Guess I’ll be sure to stay off the lawn of those who will only watch if the team is a bunch of buttoned up guys who have been at Georgia since their freshman year.
Agree wholeheartedly! It is what it is. Donโt like it, but beats the hell out of any BS that MLB puts out. Got that Power G, l am all in. tech still SUX!!!
I played in HS then softball for years after (lots of heart and really good hands, not enough arm or power in the bat).
Iโve been a huge fan of the Diamond Dogs and NCAA BB for years. I finally checked off a bucket list/lifelong dream last year and attended the CWS in Omaha. It was everything I always hoped it would be. Only negative was no Dawgs.
Love watching the Diamond Dawgs & the despicable espn provides a great vehicle to watch it. I may hate espn overall but they allow me to watch alot of UGA baseball over the next few months that I otherwise would never see.
The 2nd game yesterday is what I worry about with the Diamond Dawgs – failing to manufacture runs, feeding the trees with solo HRs and not getting clutch pitching to hold on in games (2 HBPs in one inning and a wild pitch to score another in their 2nd big inning). Without a couple of big defensive plays (a caught stealing at 3rd for a 1st out – just stupid – and throwing a guy out at the plate), it could have been a lot worse.
Agree, but it was just one game and Wright State is a solid program. They knocked Vandy out of the post season last year in Nashville when Vandy was the #1 overall seed.
Georgia had a bunch of well bit balls right at people in that game. Hopefully the contact hitters that were brought in pan out as the season rolls on. I liked what I saw out of the new pitchers overall.
Those are the things that get you knocked out when hosting a regional. Itโs really hard to win a regional once youโre in the losersโ bracket because you start pressing the issue on offense and pitching to be perfect. You also canโt set up your pitching to get the job done.
You are right on. I’ll wait a few more series, but the depth of hitting is a real concern.
Iโm going to try to take the family to a game this season and get into it. I did that with basketball and itโs been fun (albeit frustrating) to keep up with it. It really helps pass the time between football seasons and access to these games is a hell of a lot easier than attending football games. Go Daaawgs!