As expected, Friday’s series opener between No. 14 Florida and No. 22 Miami was a tightly contested pitchers’ duel that came down to just a handful of plays.
This game came down to which team made the fewest self-inflicted mistakes, and Miami was that team. They defeated the Gators 5-2 at Mark Light Field.
UF put six more runners on base than Miami did, but they stranded 12 of them. They went just 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position and left at least two runners on base in four innings. They also had a runner picked off of first base.
A couple of poorly located pitches by starting pitcher Hunter Barco to Miami’s top power hitter, Yohandy Morales, led to three runs. A failure by Barco to cover home plate on a groundout cost them another run. A dropped ball by starting catcher Mac Guscette on a throw to the plate cost them another one, as did an error and a passed ball by backup catcher Rene Lastres.
Individually, each of those mistakes might seem fairly minor. But, in a game this close, those mistakes combined to cost the Gators (8-3) a chance at their eighth win in a row.
“We just didn’t help ourselves,” UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “When you’re facing a guy like [Carson] Palmquist and you make mistakes like that defensively or mental mistakes … you’ve just got to play clean baseball, and we just did not do that tonight.”
After the Gators stranded three runners through their first four innings at the plate, Miami (8-1) opened the scoring in the bottom of the fourth. With a runner on first, Morales destroyed a 1-0 offering from Barco and deposited it well beyond the left field wall for a 2-0 lead.
UF threatened to tie the game back up in the top of the next inning, as Deric Fabian singled, Colby Halter got hit by a pitch and Jud Fabian walked to load the bases with two outs. However, in what became a theme throughout the night, they couldn’t get the big hit that they needed. Palmquist struck Sterlin Thompson out to escape the jam.
The Hurricanes took advantage of some more sloppy play by Florida to pad their lead in the bottom of the inning.
With Dominic Pitelli on second base and one out, Pitelli noticed that Barco wasn’t paying much attention to him and took off for third. The batter, CJ Kayfus, hit a short chopper just in front of the plate. Guscette threw Kayfus out, but Pitelli never hesitated and sprinted toward the plate.
Barco was supposed to cover the plate and make for an easy throw and tag in that situation. He didn’t. Instead, Guscette caught the return throw from first baseman Kendrick Calilao and had to lunge back toward the plate. He wasn’t able to do so in time, and the Hurricanes added a run on a ball that traveled only a few feet.
Later in the inning, Morales drilled an 0-2 pitch from Barco that was over the middle of the plate down the left field line for an RBI double to make it 4-0.
Barco finished with four earned runs allowed on seven hits in five innings. He struck out five batters and didn’t issue a walk, but those two or three mistakes that he made cost him dearly.
Offensively, the Gators got exactly what they wanted. Palmquist, considered one of the top pitchers in the country, departed after five innings because his pitch count was at 91. They gave themselves four cracks at the Hurricanes’ bullpen, and it looked for a little while that they just might pull this one off.
“We had the right approach on Palmquist,” O’Sullivan said. “That was the whole goal was to get his pitch count up and get him out after five or five and some change, and we did that.”
Alex McFarlane walked Deric Fabian and Halter to put two runners on with nobody out in the seventh. After Jud Fabian struck out, Thompson greeted Rafe Schlesinger with a base hit through the right side of the infield that got the Gators on the board.
Wyatt Langford followed with a groundball through the left side for an RBI single that cut the deficit to 4-2. A wild pitch on the third strike to BT Riopelle put the potential tying run in scoring position and prompted Miami’s closer, Andrew Walters, to enter the game probably a little earlier than they had hoped for.
Josh Rivera battled Walters through an eight-pitch at bat but eventually struck out swinging to keep Miami’s lead intact.
“They used all their best relievers, and we were like one hit or one at bat away from changing the complexion of the game, and we just weren’t able to do that,” O’Sullivan said. “We just made too many mistakes.”
The Hurricanes took advantage of a rough inning behind the plate by Lastres, who entered the game in the sixth inning, to get one of those runs back in the bottom of the inning.
Pitelli laid down a bunt on Blake Purnell’s first pitch of the inning. Lastres scooped it up in plenty of time but fired the ball over Calilao’s head and down the right field line, which allowed Pitelli to make it to second base.
A passed ball later in the inning moved Pitelli to third and allowed him to score on Jacob Burke’s slow groundball to third base.
Walters took care of the Gators from there to nail down his third save of the year.
Game two of the series is on Saturday at 6. The Gators will send Brandon Sproat to the mound as they look to flush the way that they played on Friday from their minds and even up the series.
“We’re in good shape,” O’Sullivan said. “They used all their bullpen. We need to get a good start from Brandon, but, obviously, we only had to use three guys tonight.
“We won the first game last year against Miami to open up the season and lost the series. Just come out [Saturday] and play a little bit cleaner and get a win [Saturday], hopefully, and then we’ll see what happens on Sunday.”