Georgia baseball is all business entering the second half of the SEC season, looking to stack another top 25 series win at Vanderbilt.

The No. 5-ranked Bulldogs (33-6, 10-5 SEC) left straight from their top-15 win over Georgia Tech at Truist Park Tuesday night to prepare for an early SEC series starting Thursday.

“I think getting in last night and these guys having a full day here in Nashville just to get their bodies back underneath them, get some sleep, get some rest, I think that was really good,” UGA coach Wes Johnson said. “And now we’re gonna get out here, get us a good two hour practice, get them moving around, have a good BP, get some good defensive work. We’ll be ready to go.”

Georgia is rocking and rolling into the Music City after beating the Yellow Jackets and former No. 1 Arkansas last weekend. The No. 19-ranked Commodores (27-10, 8-7) will start UGA’s fifth-straight ranked SEC series at 7 p.m. (stream: SEC Network+).

Georgia was sitting atop the SEC standings before facing the country’s top two teams, Texas and Arkansas, in consecutive weekends. The Bulldogs share fourth place in the conference with No. 9 LSU and have already survived the toughest part of their schedule.

Beating Vanderbilt at home will not be easy – Georgia is 3-9 in Nashville in the last decade – but leaving Charles Hawkins Field with a few more wins would be an excellent start to the finishing stretch of the SEC gauntlet.

The Commodores aren’t as talent-stacked as the Longhorns or Razorbacks, but Georgia’s offense will be tested by an elite pitching staff. Johnson, a longtime pitching coach with successful stints in the SEC and Major League Baseball, compared Vanderbilt’s arms to the best staffs in the league.

“You look at their top seven guys and they’re gonna be real similar to what we’ve seen the last two weekends between Texas and Arkansas,” Johnson said. “So as it is every week, we’ve got to get off to a good start on the mound.”

The early start did not change Johnson’s strategy on the mound. Georgia will pitch the same rotation as it did last weekend, starting Brian Curley for game one.

Junior starters Kolten Smith and Leighton Finley will start the last two games. Smith and Finley will look to replicate their outings against Vanderbilt last season when they dealt a combined 10 scoreless innings with four hits and 17 strikeouts.

Vanderbilt will counter with JD Thompson, Cody Bowker and Connor Fennell.

Thompson, Thursday night’s starter, has had a rollercoaster SEC season. The left-handed ace opened SEC play allowing five earned runs in five innings, responded with one earned run in his next start and gave up another five runs the week after that.

Thompson followed with 4-2/3 scoreless innings the next week before surrendering four runs in five innings last Friday.

Johnson expressed the importance of plate discipline against Vanderbilt. That proved true in Georgia’s sweep of the Commodores last season, as UGA struck out just 12 times all weekend while drawing 22 walks and nine hit-by-pitches.

“Our hitters are going to have to limit chases,” Johnson said. “When you look at when Vanderbilt has given up a few runs, teams haven’t chased as much, which obviously forces the pitcher into that more of that hitter’s count.”