Friday night’s series opener between the No. 23 Gators and Vanderbilt in Nashville unexpectedly turned into a bullpen night for UF. Starting pitcher Hunter Barco exited the game after two innings while dealing with the aftereffects of an illness, according to coach Kevin O’Sullivan.
For six innings, their bullpen did a stellar job. They limited the Commodores to just two runs (one of them unearned) and struck out six batters. Vanderbilt went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position during the third through eighth innings against UF’s quartet of relievers.
Ultimately, though, a couple of ill-timed defensive mistakes and a couple of hits in the bottom of the ninth led to a familiar sight – their opponent celebrating a walk-off hit. With the bases loaded and nobody out, Jack Bulger lined a 1-0 pitch from Blake Purnell through the right side of the drawn-in infield to deliver the Commodores a 5-4 win.
Purnell has now given up a walk-off hit in all three of the Gators’ SEC road series.
While Purnell failed to record an out in the ninth, O’Sullivan didn’t blame him for the loss. Instead, he pointed to the bottom of the sixth, when Nick Ficarrotta walked the leadoff man on four pitches. That runner wound up scoring. Later in the inning, with two outs and a runner on third, catcher BT Riopelle whiffed on a pitch, which allowed the tying run to score.
The ninth inning situation was worsened by shortstop Josh Rivera’s errant throw. Those self-inflicted mistakes ended up costing them the game.
“We’re just figuring out ways to not make big pitches when we need to,” O’Sullivan said. “I can’t blame the offense tonight; we scored four runs. Certainly, looking back on how they scored four of their runs, if we make a couple of pitches here or there, it’s a different ballgame.”
The Gators (21-13, 5-8 SEC) didn’t do a good job with clutch hitting, either, as they went 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position, albeit against two of Vanderbilt’s top bullpen arms. One more hit might’ve won them the game.
Bulger had a huge night for the Commodores, going 3-for-4 with two RBI. Dominic Keegan and Tate Kolwyck also produced multiple hits.
Jud Fabian and Wyatt Langford collected two hits apiece for Florida.
Vanderbilt (24-9, 6-7) closer Thomas Schultz struck out three of the five batters that he faced to earn the win.
Florida got off to an excellent start, as Colby Halter led off the game with a walk and Jud Fabian followed with his league-leading 14th home run of the year to left-center off of Chris McElvain. Barco struck out the first two batters that he faced, and it looked like the Gators would take a 2-0 lead and the momentum into their second trip to the plate.
Instead, Barco was the victim of some bad luck. His 1-2 pitch jammed Keegan, who hit a weak groundball to third. Deric Fabian charged it, scooped it up and fired to first, but his throw was too late.
That play extended the inning for Spencer Jones, who lined a single up the middle and took second on Jud Fabian’s unsuccessful throw to third. Barco jumped ahead of Bulger 1-2, but Bulger hit a groundball to third that ate up Deric Fabian for an RBI infield single.
Somehow, the Commodores scored a run in the inning despite striking out three times and only hitting one ball that left the infield.
Calvin Hewett tied the game by blasting a homer to left-center field to lead off the second. A walk and an errant pickoff throw by Barco put a runner in scoring position with two outs, but Barco escaped further damage by getting Enrique Bradfield to ground out to the mound.
Barco walked into the dugout with seemingly nothing wrong with him but never returned.
Ficarrotta took over to start the third and struck out three batters to hang three consecutive zeroes.
Meanwhile, Florida’s offense scored a run in both the fourth and fifth innings to grab a 4-2 lead. Langford led off the fourth with a double into the right-center gap, and Kendrick Calilao smoked a one-out double under the glove of third baseman Davis Diaz and into the left-field corner to score Langford.
Deric Fabian led off the fifth by singling up the middle. He later scored on Langford’s two-out single through the right side off of reliever Patrick Reilly.
Then came that pivotal sixth inning. Ficarrotta walked Bulger on four pitches and then surrendered a single to Kolwyck. Javier Vaz advanced both runners into scoring position with a sacrifice bunt.
“I thought [Ficarrotta] had pitched really good for three innings, but, when your starter goes two, we need somebody else to step up and go four or five,” O’Sullivan said. “We weren’t able to do that.”
Left-handed hitter Jonathan Vastine stepped into the box as a pinch hitter, but O’Sullivan countered by bringing in lefty Philip Abner out of the bullpen. Abner fell behind Vastine 3-1 and got him to hit a sacrifice fly to deep center to cut the lead to 4-3.
With the potential tying run at third, two outs and a switch hitter at the plate, O’Sullivan opted to play the matchup game one more time and brought in Ryan Slater to pitch.
The move should’ve worked, as Slater struck out Carter Young looking. Unfortunately, Riopelle tried to catch Slater’s 0-1 breaking ball with his backhand instead of dropping to his knees and blocking it. The ball whizzed past him and allowed Kolwyck to score the tying run.
The teams combined to strand seven runners on the basepaths over the next four half innings until Schultz tossed a clean frame in the top of the ninth.
Bradfield got the decisive rally started with a groundball through the right side for a single. And, of course, with Bradfield being perhaps the fastest player in the country, that single quickly turned into two bases when he stole second during the next at bat.
Keegan hit a chopper to short that Rivera fielded cleanly. His throw sailed high, and Calilao missed on his tag attempt. O’Sullivan chose to intentionally walk Jones to load the bases and create a force out at every base.
Bulger lined Purnell’s 1-0 pitch over the second baseman Halter’s head and into the outfield to ignite the Vanderbilt celebration.
The loss stings for the Gators not only because it set them back as far as postseason positioning and their chances of winning this series but also because it was yet another winnable game that they let get away from them.
You can make the argument that the Gators could be 10-3 in SEC play right now if they had just made a handful of better pitches and avoided a couple of defensive mistakes. They’ve been right there in the latter stages in five of their eight conference losses.
The Gators took a step forward last Saturday when they withstood multiple Arkansas rallies to pull out a win and take the series.
They took a step backward on Friday in Nashville.
“We’re pitching well enough to stay in games, but we aren’t pitching well enough to win games, and we’ve just got to figure that out,” O’Sullivan said.