The Gators’ hot streak at the plate came to an end on Tuesday night against Jacksonville. They registered nine hits, but only one of them went for extra bases. They went 3-for-17 with runners on base and stranded seven runners on the basepaths.
The Dolphins’ four pitchers did a terrific job of keeping the Gators off balance and unable to build much momentum. They held them to a season-low one run.
Fortunately for the No. 11 Gators, their trio of pitchers were even better. Tyler Nesbitt, Ryan Slater and Nick Ficarrotta combined to toss a three-hit shutout, and the Gators won their 10th game in their last 11 attempts by a score of 1-0 at Florida Ballpark.
“It was a really quality win,” UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “We played great defense. Kendrick [Calilao] made the nice over-the-shoulder catch at first, and Colby [Halter] made a great play in short right-center field, and the communication between him and Jud [Fabian] was really good. Jud made that great play coming in on the ball. It was a really clean game, but it needed to be that way if we wanted to win because they pitched really well.”
Nesbitt started the game and struck out three batters in two innings. It marked the redshirt freshman’s first action since March 10, 2020, against Florida State, a game that is better known as the unexpected final game at McKethan Stadium. He was expected to play a key role in the bullpen last season, but he suffered an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery shortly before the season.
His fastball looked sharp and regularly registered in the high-80 and low-90s on Tuesday, not too far off from where he was before the surgery. His slider and changeup both had a lot of vertical movement.
“I got the news like a week before the season [last year] because I threw and just couldn’t throw no more,” Nesbitt said. “To hear that, it really hurt because I had worked the whole fall and spring to get ready for the season, and I felt like I was there, and it just got taken away from me.”
His night got off to a bit of a rocky start, and that can probably be largely attributed to first-game jitters. Chase Malloy singled up the middle against him with one out in the first. Nesbitt then walked Jonah Diaz to put himself in a tough position. He settled down and got Christian Coipel to fly out to right before striking out Jesus Pacheco to end the inning.
“Just deep breaths, trust myself because I’m here for a reason,” he said. “You don’t just get to Florida being no one. You have to trust yourself, and I dug down and trusted myself.”
The second inning went much smoother for Nesbitt, as he retired Jacksonville (8-5) in order with a strikeout.
“Nervous the first inning,” he said. “The second inning, I felt a lot more confident, a lot more settled down, and everything felt just a lot more smooth in the second inning.”
He exited the game after 29 pitches, which was right around what O’Sullivan wanted him to throw in his first game back. The goal is to gradually stretch him out, and they hope to get 40-45 pitches out of him in his next outing.
Slater took the ball to start the third and was fantastic. He gave up just one hit in five innings and faced the minimum number of batters thanks to a seventh-inning double play to pick up his first-career win.
Prior to Tuesday, Slater’s longest outing in college had been just 2 1/3 innings. He also sat out last year while recovering from Tommy John surgery, so O’Sullivan wanted to stretch his arm out a bit as well. He threw 58 pitches against the Dolphins, 44 of them for strikes.
Meanwhile, the Gators (11-3) eventually broke through offensively in the sixth inning. Wyatt Langford drew a two-out walk from starter Michael Darrell-Hicks. Jacksonville coach Chris Hayes opted to play the matchup game and brought in lefty Parker Murphy to face lefty BT Riopelle, who has struggled quite a bit in left-on-left matchups this year.
Riopelle spoiled their plans by dropping down a beautiful bunt single down the third-base line on Murphy’s first pitch.
Calilao followed by lining the first pitch he saw just in front of the left fielder Diaz for an RBI single.
That swing made Darrell-Hicks a tough-luck loser. His fastball consistently checked in around 95 miles per hour, and his slider was extremely effective against the Gators’ righties.
“We knew coming in that their starter was really good, really talented,” O’Sullivan said. “Obviously, [Tyler] Vogel’s got five saves on the year, and he’s got a really good arm. We knew that. We talked to the team about that. This is not going to be one of those games that it’s going to be easy, and we needed to play clean. We had the one opportunity with runners on second and third in the third. We’ve just got to have a little bit better of an at bat there and get that run in because it kind of felt like it was going to be a one-run game.”
Ficarrotta entered the game to start the eighth inning. Like Nesbitt, he experienced some struggles in his first inning. He gave up a one-out single to Blake DeLamielleure and walked Jackson Grabsky with two outs. He got out of the inning by getting Elias Flowers to ground out to second. He then worked around a two-out walk in the ninth to nail down his third save of the year.
Offensively, Kris Armstrong and Calilao were the only two players with multiple hits.
Armstrong had been just 5-for-32 this season, which had caused him to jump in and out of the lineup. He seemed to have an excellent approach against the Dolphins. He batted from the left side against the right-handed pitching that he saw, and the Dolphins put a shift on for all three of his at bats. Armstrong took what they gave him and singled twice to shallow left-center field and once to just right of second base.
Armstrong hopes to use this game as a springboard to greater consistency at the plate.
“I think beginning of the year, I was a little bit pull-happy,” Armstrong said. “Just trying to hit the ball up the middle someway, somehow, and, sure enough, beating the shift, it does feel really good, especially with how much they shift and how often.”
Similarly, Calilao is now 9 for his last 23 with seven RBI after starting the year just 1-for-17.
“He’s one of the older players in our program, and he’s seeing the ball really good right now,” O’Sullivan said. “I don’t think anything’s different, but he’s always been able to hit. I just think he’s seeing the ball really well right now.”
Florida and Jacksonville will meet again on Wednesday night at 6 at Florida Ballpark.