Back-to-back rocky starts from sophomore ace Logan Shore have resulted in two Friday night losses for the No. 1 Florida Gators (19-4, 2-2 SEC) as Florida fell 4-1 at the hands of the Ole Miss Rebels (12-9, 2-2 SEC) on Friday night.
Heading into SEC play last Friday, Shore had given up one home run in his career. The sophomore surrendered three in the first inning to Tennessee as well as another one before exiting the game and taking his first loss of the season. Shore looked to redeem himself on the road in Oxford but fell victim to the long ball again.
A one-out double in the top of the first was followed by a J.B Woodman homer to right-center. Shore got out of the inning allowing just the two hits and two runs but never settled in on the mound. Florida needs Shore to round back into form if they’re going to accomplish what they set out to this season. Simple as that.
“Everything was up. He had a tough night,” head coach Kevin O’Sullivan said of Shore. “We have a long week ahead of us — we have to get him going. I think next week we have Thursday, Friday, Saturday weekend and we have to get him going.”
Shore’s counterpart, junior left-hander Christian Trent, came into the game in similar fashion to Shore. Kent didn’t suffer a loss in his first 22 starts at Ole Miss before taking a loss at LSU last Friday. Trent, however, bounced back beautifully, throwing 6.1 innings of three-hit baseball, allowing one run while striking out three. Florida didn’t register a hit until the fifth inning and other than a Mike Rivera double in the seventh inning that scored Buddy Reed from first base, didn’t muster up much of anything in the box.
“Their pitcher did a really nice job and we just really couldn’t quite get anything going offensively,” O’Sullivan said. “It’s just one those things; we have to do a better job on Friday nights. We need to have better at-bats and keep the ball out of the air a little more and see if we can get on the board early.”
Aaron Rhodes and Shaun Anderson finished out the game for the Gators, combining to throw 4.1 innings, giving up two runs (one earned run) on three hits and struck out five.
NOTES:
- Dalton Guthrie and Harrison Bader both had hitting streaks end as the two went 0-8 at the plate.
- Buddy Reed singled to extend his hitting streak to a career-long 10 games.
- Freshmen Mike Rivera and Jeremy Vasquez accounted for two of Florida’s three hits.
- Logan Shore lost back-to-back starts for the first time in his career at Florida.
- Freshman second baseman Dalton Guthrie left the game after he slipped rounding first and his knee slammed into the bag. Guthrie was attended to by trainers on the field and was able to walk off under his own power but did not return to the game.
- Senior Josh Tobias did not travel with the team to Oxford after violating team rules.
Saturday:
Florida and Ole Miss will be back at it at 2:30 p.m. EST on Saturday with LHP A.J. Puk facing off against RHP Brady Bramlett.