Gators fall to Commodores despite Riopelle’s career night

For the second night in a row, the No. 23 Gators got off to a hot start, this time jumping out to a 4-0 lead over Vanderbilt in the fourth inning.

However, UF’s pitching staff proved once again that no lead is safe with them. The Commodores cut the lead in half with single runs in the fourth and fifth innings. Then they struck for four runs off of starter Brandon Sproat in the sixth to grab the lead. Florida tied the game in the following half inning on BT Riopelle’s third home run of the game, but UF’s bullpen gave up a run in both the seventh and eighth innings to lose the game.

Vanderbilt prevailed, 8-6, in Nashville on Saturday night. It marked Florida’s seventh consecutive loss in true road games, with six of the defeats coming in SEC play.

The biggest issue for UF’s pitching staff was free passes. The Gators walked seven Commodores, including two batters in a row in what proved to be a decisive bottom of the seventh. Sproat worked himself out of some big-time jams in the first five innings, but allowing multiple runners to reach base in five of eight innings proved to be an unsustainable business model.

“The bottom line is we scored six runs; that should be enough to win a game in our league, and we just weren’t able to hold it down at the end,” coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “It’s as simple as that. The walks and falling behind hitters in the last three innings of a game is what’s been hurting us.

“In tight situations, we seem to lose command of our slider and our changeup, and we’re falling behind and becoming one-dimensional just throwing fastballs. If you get to a 3-1 count to start an inning, what do you expect? Bad things are typically going to happen if you do it over and over.”

The loss spoiled a remarkable game by Riopelle. He had only hit two home runs in a game once in his career prior to Saturday, and that came when he played at Coastal Carolina. He matched that total in the fourth inning and ended up becoming the first Gator to hit three homers in a game since Wil Dalton in 2018. Only JJ Schwarz (four) has ever hit more homers in a game.

Riopelle and Wyatt Langford (2-for-5) pretty much carried the entire offense on Saturday. The rest of the team went a combined 2-for-24, and the team as a whole went 3-for-14 with runners on base.

Spencer Jones (3-for-4), Enrique Bradfield (2-for-4, three RBI), Keegan (2-for-5, two RBI) and Tate Kolwyck all notched multiple hits for Vanderbilt (25-9, 7-7 SEC).

The Gators (21-14, 5-9) opened the scoring when Riopelle led off the second by smashing a 3-1 fastball from Carter Holton over the right-field stands and onto the street.

Langford led off the fourth with a single to right, and Riopelle lined a first-pitch fastball on the outer part of the plate over the Big Monster-like wall in left. Two batters later, Josh Rivera hit a home run to left-center field that just cleared the wall to make it 4-0.

Those two swings seemed to rattle Holton, as he threw nine consecutive balls to load the bases with two walks and a hit batter. The Gators were on the verge of blowing the game wide open, but Sterlin Thompson let Holton off the hook by grounding out to second to end the inning. Not tacking on any additional runs in that inning wound up making a huge difference in the final outcome.

Keegan lined Sproat’s first pitch of the bottom of the fourth over the wall in right-center. Sproat gave up two more hits in the inning but avoided giving up any more runs thanks to a double play.

Sproat jumped ahead of Davis Diaz 1-2 to open the fifth but completely missed his spot to the opposite side of the plate and plunked Diaz with a breaking ball. A single and a fielder’s choice put runners on the corners with one out, and Javier Vaz delivered an RBI single to right to make it 4-2.

Once again, Sproat wiggled out of trouble by inducing an inning-ending double play.

The dam finally burst in the sixth. Jones led off with a double into the left-center gap and advanced to third on a groundout. Sproat walked Kolwyck to put runners on the corners with one out.

Jonathan Vastine laid down a bunt on a safety squeeze play. The ball rolled a little too close to the mound, and Sproat threw home to try to prevent a run from scoring. The home-plate umpire initially called Jones out at the plate, but the call was reversed by the replay official in Birmingham despite the replay shown on television appearing inconclusive. That controversial play made it 4-3 and started the implosion.

Sproat got Diaz to groundout to short, but both runners were in motion, which kept them out of a potential inning-ending double play. Sproat walked Carter Young to load the bases with two outs.

Sproat got ahead of Bradfield 1-2 and threw a changeup that was at the bottom of the strike zone on the outer part of the plate. Bradfield hit a fly ball that just got over the right fielder Thompson’s head. All three runners scored on Bradfield’s triple to give Vanderbilt a 6-4 lead.

“It was a decent pitch, and he just ran into it and hit it over Sterlin’s head and cleared the bases,” O’Sullivan said. “I thought, overall, he pitched good. It came down to one pitch. That’s just baseball. A few inches lower or whatever, it’s a different outcome, but it is what it is. It certainly didn’t come down to that. I thought he pitched well enough for us to win.”

The Commodores’ momentum didn’t last long. Langford lined a two-out single to left field off of Nick Maldonado in the seventh. Maldonado fell behind Riopelle 3-0 and decided to throw a fastball right down the middle to try to get back in the count.

Riopelle had other plans. He got the green light from the dugout and crushed the pitch over the right-center field fence to tie the game at six.

Then UF’s bullpen did its thing again. Tyler Nesbitt walked Jones with one out, which prompted O’Sullivan to bring in Blake Purnell. Purnell walked Jack Bulger on four pitches and then gave up a first-pitch single to Kolwyck that gave the Commodores the lead again.

“Our bullpen, if we don’t throw strikes and work ahead, we’re going to continue to have the same problems, and we’ve talked about it,” O’Sullivan said. “There’s no longer reason to keep talking about it because we beat it like a dead horse.”

Keegan provided Vanderbilt with an insurance run with an RBI single in the eighth off of Ryan Slater.

The Gators made things a little interesting in the ninth. Thomas Schultz hit Jud Fabian with a pitch, and Thompson hit a sharp groundball to the right side that appeared to be heading for the outfield.

Instead, the ball hit Fabian, which resulted in him being called out. Vanderbilt chose to intentionally walk Riopelle with two outs even though it meant putting the potential go-ahead run at the plate.

Their gamble paid off, as Schultz struck out Kendrick Calilao to record his fifth save.

Florida will try to avoid being swept for the second time in three weeks in game three on Sunday at 1.

Ethan Hughes
Ethan was born in Gainesville and has lived in the Starke, Florida, area his entire life. He played basketball for five years and knew he wanted to be a sportswriter when he was in middle school. He’s attended countless Gators athletic events since his early childhood, with baseball being his favorite sport to attend. He’s a proud 2019 graduate of the University of Florida and a 2017 graduate of Santa Fe College. He interned with the University Athletic Association’s communications department for 1 ½ years as a student and also wrote for InsideTheGators.com for two years before joining Gator Country in 2021. He is a long-suffering fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars. You can follow him on Twitter @ethanhughes97.