The No. 9 Gators were in an excellent position to finish off a sweep of Alabama on Sunday. They scored three runs in the eighth to take a 7-5 lead. They gave up a home run in the bottom of the inning but still led by a run entering the bottom of the ninth.
Blake Purnell took over on the mound, looking to record his second save of the weekend. He entered the day having not given up an earned run in 19 1/3 innings this season. The Crimson Tide had the bottom third of their order due up. Purnell got Drew Williamson to ground out to short to put the Gators two outs away.
Then things spiraled away from Purnell quickly. He plunked Andrew Pinckney with a 1-2 slider that was supposed to be low and away. Bryce Eblin followed with a single into right-center field that put runners on the corners. Jim Jarvis dropped down a bunt down the third-base line. Rather than waiting to see if it would roll foul, Purnell picked up the ball and had no play, which tied the game.
Dominic Tamez hit a sharp groundball to third that Deric Fabian didn’t field cleanly for a single that loaded the bases. UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan opted to bring in right fielder Sterlin Thompson to serve as a fifth infielder, since anything hit fairly deep into the outfield would end the game anyway.
It didn’t matter.
Zane Denton grounded the first pitch he saw through the right side of the infield to deliver Alabama an 8-7 win.
“We have practiced [the five-man infield],” O’Sullivan said. “That’s my fault. We need to make sure we go over it on the road on Thursday nights before we play on the road because that’s the only time you’re going to do it is on the road. We have practiced it, but that falls on me. We should’ve gone over that on Thursday night so there wasn’t that much confusion.
“Blake’s been great all year for us. I’m not going to put this on him. That’s part of being a guy that pitches at the end of the game. There’s a lot of things that happened up until the ninth inning that puts you in that position.”
The walk-off was one of three hits on the day for Denton, and he also drove in three runs. Owen Diodati and Eblin each notched two hits.
Florida (15-5, 2-1 SEC) was paced offensively by another terrific showing by left fielder Wyatt Langford. He went 3-for-4 with a homer and two RBI. Thompson, Kendrick Calilao and Josh Rivera all had two hits, and Jud Fabian smacked a two-run homer that gave them the lead in the eighth.
As they did in each of the first two games of the series, the Gators jumped on Alabama’s starting pitcher early. Thompson and Langford hit back-to-back doubles with two outs in the first inning off of Grayson Hitt to score one run, and another run scored when the first baseman Williamson misplayed a groundball off of the bat of BT Riopelle.
UF starter Timmy Manning made quick work of the Tide (13-8, 1-2) in the bottom of the inning, retiring the side on seven pitches.
Then, as has too often been the case with the sophomore lefty this season, he just lost his command of the strike zone seemingly out of nowhere. He walked three consecutive batters with one out in the second, which ended his day. It was Manning’s second consecutive outing in which he failed to make it out of his second inning.
Brandon Neely took over on the mound. He got the groundball that the Gators were looking for. Rivera flipped it to Colby Halter at second for one out, but Halter’s throw to first went past Calilao, which allowed the Tide to tie the game at two despite not having a hit yet in the game.
Florida reclaimed the lead in the fourth when Thompson and Langford launched back-to-back homers. It was the second time this weekend that the Gators hit back-to-back bombs, and Langford was involved in both of them.
After retiring the side in order in the third, Neely issued a leadoff walk to Tommy Seidl in the fourth after jumping ahead in the count 1-2. Diodati made him pay by lining the first pitch he saw over the wall in right field.
At that point, the game was tied at four despite the Crimson Tide having only one hit. While Alabama officially won the game in the bottom of the ninth, O’Sullivan said that their inability to throw strikes early in the game is what cost them the game.
“The bottom line is we didn’t play well enough to win,” he said. “I think they scored their first four runs on one hit. We didn’t get a very good start, obviously. I felt really good. We scored two in the first and had a quick first, and then we lost the strike zone in the second. I thought Brandon came in and did a good job in a tough situation, bringing him in there with the bases loaded, but we made two throws on the infield we probably shouldn’t have made that cost us a couple runs.
“We gave up four runs on one hit. When we scored two in the first, we had all the momentum. We just didn’t go out there in the second inning and throw strikes. I think if we threw strikes for a couple more innings, the game could’ve went maybe in another direction.”
Alabama took their first lead of the series in the bottom of the fifth. With a runner on second and two outs, Denton hit a slow groundball up the middle that Rivera did an incredible job just to get to. Rather than trying to get the runner out at the plate or just hanging onto the ball, Rivera uncorked a throw toward first base.
Calilao had vacated the bag, and the ball deflected off of Denton’s leg and went to the wall. Denton was credited with an RBI, and he advanced to second on the error by Rivera.
That 5-4 Alabama lead held until the top of the eighth. Reliever Dylan Ray walked Halter, and Jud Fabian followed with his eighth long ball of the year to give the Gators the lead. Later in the inning, Calilao singled up the middle off of Jacob McNairy to score Langford and make it a 7-5 game.
After tossing two scoreless frames, Garrett Milchin gave up a leadoff home run to Denton in the bottom of the inning. Nick Ficarrotta replaced him on the mound and got three groundouts to preserve the lead.
O’Sullivan opted to bring in Purnell in the ninth instead of sticking with Ficarrotta. Obviously, it’s easy to criticize the decision in hindsight, but Purnell had been almost perfect this season up until Sunday. Unfortunately, he cracked at the worst time possible.
The Gators will host Bethune-Cookman on Tuesday before playing LSU next weekend.
“It wasn’t a lack of effort today,” O’Sullivan said. “It just was a lack of execution. We’ve got to figure out our pitching, and that’s the bottom line. To come out of here with two wins on the road, first SEC weekend, and get two below-average starts, [Saturday] and today, you’ve got to feel fortunate.”