The No. 8 Gators didn’t play their cleanest game of the season against Bethune-Cookman on Tuesday night at Florida Ballpark.
Offensively, they racked up 11 hits but went 0-for-14 with runners in scoring position and left 12 runners on base.
On the mound, their five pitchers combined to walk seven batters and hit two more against an offense that notched just one hit during the game.
An error allowed the Wildcats to score an unearned run.
Fortunately for the Gators, Jud Fabian stayed red hot. He belted a pair of solo home runs to power his team to a 3-2 victory.
It was Fabian’s seventh career game with two homers, and he took over sole possession of sixth place all-time in program history with 42 career long balls.
Fabian now has 10 home runs this season. That’s not a surprise given his history. What has been a pleasant surprise is his plate discipline. After ranking among the national leaders in strikeouts last season, he’s now walked four more times (22) than he’s struck out (18) this season. The lower whiff rate has allowed him to boost his batting average to .320 after entering the year as a career .249 hitter.
“Everybody knows he’s got power, but I think the strikeout-to-walk ratio has been phenomenal,” coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “His strike zone management is entirely different than it was his previous years. I’m really pleased with his development there.”
Mac Guscette, making his first appearance in 10 days following a hamstring injury against Seton Hall, was the only other player with multiple hits in the game, going 2-for-3 with an RBI.
Nick Pogue made his second start of the season after returning from Tommy John surgery, and he wasn’t sharp once again. He walked Malik Stephens to begin the game. Stephens then stole second and advanced to third on a pop out by Christopher Patterson. Another walk put runners on the corners with two outs.
As Guscette returned the ball to Pogue during Boris Pena’s at bat, Stephens took off for the plate and stole home to give Bethune-Cookman (8-12, 3-0 SWAC) a 1-0 lead.
“I think it caught everyone by surprise,” O’Sullivan said. “Lesson learned, but he can really run. I think the bottom line is Mac probably needs to take a peek before he throws the ball back to the pitcher. It doesn’t happen very often, but certainly don’t expect that to happen again.”
Two more walks loaded the bases and ended Pogue’s night.
“It’s hard,” O’Sullivan said. “He’s probably thinking about things a little bit. This is not an easy thing to come back from. Normally, in a perfect world, you go through all your rehab stuff in the offseason, and then you have the opportunity to throw in some intra-squad games, but he hasn’t had that opportunity. He’s rehabbed and thrown to our hitters, so this is his first time out. I know he’s probably frustrated, but this is part of the process.”
Nick Ficarrotta entered and got Kyle Wilkinson to ground out to end the inning.
Ficarrotta pitched a perfect inning in the second before plunking Matthew Garcia to lead off the third. Patterson followed with a single through the left side. With one out, Pena hit a groundball to third that Colby Halter misplayed, which allowed a run to score. Ficarrotta escaped further damage by getting Brian Perez to line into a double play to the mound.
Meanwhile, the Gators (16-5, 2-1 SEC) put a runner into scoring position in each of the first two innings and loaded the bases in the third but couldn’t get that one clutch hit that they needed to get onto the scoreboard.
“I think their pitching was really good tonight,” O’Sullivan said. “They pitched with their off-speed pitches in fastball counts the entire night. Middle of the game, they run a guy out there touching 94 and had a good slider and didn’t walk many. They played good defense. So, it was one of those games where it wasn’t going to be a game where they’re going to walk two guys to start an inning and kick a ball. It was a clean game on their end, so hats off to them.”
They eventually broke through in the fourth against reliever Joan Gonzalez by using some small ball. Ty Evans and Rene Lastres stroked back-to-back singles to left to put runners on the corners with one out. Guscette dropped down a sacrifice bunt down the first-base line to cut the deficit in half.
They tied the game in the next inning when Fabian led off with his first home run of the night. Sterlin Thompson followed with a double, but the Gators were unable to grab the lead.
Tyler Nesbitt took over on the mound for Florida to start the sixth and got himself into trouble by walking the leadoff hitter. A sacrifice bunt and a wild pitch advanced the runner to third with two outs, but Nesbitt struck out Franki Febles to preserve the tie.
Philip Abner worked around a one-out walk to hang a zero in the seventh, which allowed him to get credit for the win. Fabian lined Gonzalez’ first pitch of the bottom of the seventh over the wall in left to give the Gators their first lead of the game.
“He threw a first-pitch slider [during the first home run at bat], and it was a strike,” Fabian said. “And then he threw a fastball nowhere near the zone, so I knew he was probably going to come back with the slider. Got barrel to it, and then I figured, second AB, they wouldn’t throw me a slider and I would get first-pitch heater, and I got a first-pitch heater.”
UF stranded two more runners in both the seventh and eighth innings to make things scary in the ninth.
Karl Hartman walked Perez to lead off the inning. Wilkinson laid down a sacrifice bunt to move the potential tying run into scoring position. Hartman struck out Febles for the second out, but a wild pitch during Colton Olasin’s at bat allowed Perez to advance to third.
Hartman struck out Olasin looking on a full-count pitch to end the game and pick up his first career save.
“We’re throwing a lot of guys tonight in a very tight game that, quite frankly, don’t have a lot of experience other than [Ficarrotta],” O’Sullivan said. “So, you walk out of here with a one-run win, and things could’ve gotten away from us there in the ninth. We walked the leadoff man in the ninth, but Karl throws a 3-2 breaking ball to end the ballgame. Not easy to do.
“He made a really big pitch at the most important part of the game. I’m going with the positives today.”
The Gators will be back in action on Friday when they open a weekend series against No. 21 LSU.