No.8 Florida baseball defeated No.4 Texas A&M 8-6 on Friday night, taking game one of the series while delivering the Aggies their first loss of the 2024 season. The Gators hit five home runs in the contest and found three innings of dominant relief pitching from Brandon Neely. Jac Caglianone homered twice in the contest while Cade Kurland, Colby Shelton, and Tyler Shelnut also went yard.
Florida improved to 11-6 (1-0 SEC) on the season.
“Wins are really hard to come by,” Head Coach Kevin O’Sullivan said postgame. “If Jac continues to throw like he has, especially pitching against other teams’ number threes, you try to really split one of the first two and if gives you an opportunity to win the series.”
Knocking out LHP Ryan Prager
Aggies’ Friday night starter Ryan Prager woke up this morning with a 0.00 ERA across 23.2 innings pitched this season. The Gators jumped all over the left hander early, plating six runs across the first seven outs, knocking Prager out of the game after just 2.1 innings pitched.
Not only did this play a huge part in Florida’s Friday night victory, but it set up the Gators beautifully for the remainder of the series. TAMU’s reliever Chris Cortez, who retired seven consecutive batters via strikeout at one point, tossed 60 pitches across four innings, likely sidelining him for a majority of the weekend series. Cortez was throwing upper 90’s while mixing in a breaking ball that was fooling Florida at the plate early on.
TAMU also used Brad Rudis (29 pitches) and Weston Moss (8 pitches) in the game.
Knocking out a starter early is always a good thing but being able to do it on Friday night changes the outlook of the series.
Overpowering at the plate and mound
Florida simply overpowered Texas A&M in game one, blasting five home runs while striking out 13 Aggie batters.
Jac Caglianone added his 6th and 7th home run of the season, smashing both to dead center while one cleared the batters eye. Both long balls were against lefties; Caglianone has vastly improved his approach at the plate against southpaws this season.
Tyler Shelnut provided Florida with a three-run bomb in the bottom of the third, giving Florida a 6-5 lead in a back-and-forth game.
With the game tied at six, Cade Kurland cranked a solo shot to left center off RHP Chris Cortez, who had retired nine straight Florida batters at the time.
Colby Shelton launched his team leading 10th home run of the season to left field, giving Florida an insurance run with their star closer Brandon Neely on the bump.
“I felt good about the way we were swinging the bats tonight and thought we had a really good approach,” O’Sullivan said postgame.
On the mound, LHP Cade Fisher got through six innings while striking out 10 batters. Brandon Neely struck out three batters across three innings to close out the game for the Gators.
Cade Fisher is improving
LHP Cade Fisher allowed six runs on six hits vs TAMU but was able to give Florida’s pitching staff six innings of work, something that the Gators have not found very often from their starting pitching this season.
Fisher allowed five of his six runs in the second inning, which started with a hit by pitch and a walk. It wasn’t always pretty, but Fisher showed flashes of dominance, posting three 1-2-3 innings in his outing while striking out ten batters.
“I thought Cade settled in,” O’Sullivan said on Fisher’s start. “I mean he could’ve easily gotten a little rattled there after the second. Next four innings gave up one run, that being the home run to Apell. I thought he pitched great other than that second inning, so if we can continue to talk about these things about the beginning and the rebound runs and that type of thing. Then we will be that much better, but with that being said, he put the second inning behind him, put up a zero in third, fourth, gave up the solo home run to Appel and then got us through six innings and I thought he got stronger as the game went on. And then Brandon came in and did exactly what he would hope he would do.”
Across his last four starts, Fisher has struck out 34 batters while surrendering just three walks. Command hasn’t been the issue for the Georgia native, but pitch location has, leaving too many pitches over the heart of the plate, resulting in a number of extra base hits, which we saw at times tonight.
Fisher did a better job of keeping the ball down versus a dangerous TAMU lineup, which allowed him to extend his outing and give Florida the six innings they desperately needed from their Friday night starter.