Georgia baseball dropped its first SEC series of the season on Saturday, falling 9-3 to Kentucky.

The Bulldogs (17-3, 0-2 SEC) looked like a shell of themselves offensively, stringing together just three hits. It was UGA’s second homer-less game of the season, its first since the opening weekend.

Georgia aims to salvage the series at 1 p.m. on Sunday at Kentucky Proud Park in Lexington.

The Wildcats (16-3, 2-0) jumped on Bulldog starter Leighton Finley early with a pair of runs in the first inning and another in the second.

Finley finished his first career SEC start surrendering seven hits, a walk and three earned runs in four innings.

The Wildcats were particularly strong in forcing long at-bats. Kentucky continued to foul off pitches, forcing walks or mistake strikes in the middle of the zone.

“It’s the quality of the pitch as crazy as it sounds,” Johnson said. “We’ve just got to continue to try to make pitches, (and) we’ve got to play better defense.”

Kentucky kept rolling against reliever Daniel Padysak in the fifth inning, taking a 5-0 lead on a two-run double. Padysak walked the first two batters he faced to set up the double, which ended his day before he recorded an out.

“We’ve got to throw quality strikes with two strikes,” Johnson said. “The walks right there in the middle of the game really came back to haunt us.”

The Wildcats added a sixth run on an RBI single in the sixth inning.

Georgia finally found some momentum at the plate in the seventh inning. Charlie Condon drew a bases-loaded walk before Slate Alford delivered a two-RBI single for UGA’s three unearned runs.

Suddenly, the Bulldogs had some momentum, trailing just 6-3 entering the eighth inning.

Kentucky delivered the knockout blow in the eighth inning, hitting a pair of homers for the game’s last three runs.

Georgia had plenty of opportunities to answer Kentucky despite the season-low hit total. The Bulldogs were 1-of-9 hitting with runners in scoring position.

The same UGA team that entered Lexington leading the country in homers, slugging percentage and OPS is now 3-of-21 with runners in scoring position this weekend.

“That was uncharacteristic of us, and you’re going to go through these stretches,” Johnson said. “It’s baseball. Nobody hits 1.000.”

Alford led the Bulldog offense, hitting 1 for 4 with two RBI.