The No. 8 Gators weren’t all that prolific at the plate on Friday night against LSU. They only notched seven hits, and they went 2-for-16 with runners on base. No Gator had a multi-hit game.
Normally, that’s not a recipe for winning.
But it is when you can launch balls out of the park at just the right moments. Florida belted three home runs to easily defeat the No. 21 Tigers, 7-2, in the series opener at Florida Ballpark.
Colby Halter and BT Riopelle clubbed solo shots off of LSU starter Blake Money, while Wyatt Langford blasted a two-run shot to pretty much remove all doubt about the game’s outcome.
Halter’s home run came out of the leadoff spot in the bottom of the first. After falling behind 3-1, Money grooved him a fastball over the heart of the plate to try to get back in the count.
Halter didn’t miss it, sending it over the right-field fence for his fifth homer of the year and a quick 1-0 lead.
The exact same situation played out in the fourth. Money fell behind Riopelle 3-1 and threw a fastball that caught way too much of the plate. Riopelle sent it out to right-center field for his fifth homer of the year to make it 2-0.
The Gators (17-5, 3-1 SEC) struck for four runs in the fifth to turn this game into a blowout. Kris Armstrong led off with a single to right field. Deric Fabian tried to move him over to second via a sacrifice bunt, but the ball plopped right in front of the plate. Catcher Tyler McManus picked it up and fired it to second to try to get the lead out. Instead, his throw was wide of the bag and allowed both runners to be safe.
A flyout by Halter and a wild pitch by Money moved both runners into scoring position with one out. Jud Fabian scored his brother with a groundout deep into the hole at shortstop, and Sterlin Thompson followed with a single through the right side to make it 4-0.
Money threw a first-pitch slider to Langford that hung right over the middle of the plate. Langford unloaded on it for a no-doubter to make it 6-0.
“Up until that point, I hadn’t seen a fastball the whole night, so I was kind of expecting [a slider],” Langford said.
UF tacked on its final run in the sixth when Halter hit a popup to the shortstop with the bases loaded. The umpire correctly called the infield-fly rule, which made Halter out automatically. However, shortstop Jordan Thompson misplayed the ball and allowed it to land in shallow left-center field. Kendrick Calilao raced home from third to score the run.
“I thought Money did a really nice job immediately when we had a 3-1 count to start the game and Colby runs into a fastball, and they immediately slowed the ball down,” coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “A lot of changeups to left-handed hitters, a lot of breaking balls early in the count to right-handed hitters. We didn’t get many fastballs after that in fastball counts.
“I think our hitters did a really nice job of making adjustments. Wyatt hit a home run on a slider. I think one of the key at bats during that game was, I think it was the bottom of the fifth, Kris led off the inning with a single on a changeup. I thought our hitters did a much better job adjusting as the game went on.”
Meanwhile, Florida lefty starter Hunter Barco didn’t command his pitches as well as he usually does. He entered the day with two walks all season. He walked three Tigers and hit two more. Only 59 percent of his pitches were strikes, a low number for him.
“I knew from the time I was in the bullpen warming up before the game that I didn’t have my best stuff, and pretty much all I told myself was just compete,” Barco said. “Today wasn’t one of those days where I’m going to go blow the ball by them or really just kind of overmatch them, so I just had to go out there and compete.”
And that’s exactly what he did. He pushed through the control issues and tossed seven shutout innings with eight strikeouts and just two hits allowed.
The biggest trouble he ran into came in the fourth. He threw seven consecutive balls to walk Gavin Dugas and Thompson.
After a mound meeting with volunteer assistant coach David Kopp, Barco rediscovered his groove and got McManus to ground into an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play.
He went into cruise control mode from there and retired 10 of the final 12 batters that he faced.
“He just battled,” O’Sullivan said. “I mentioned that to the team at the end to young pitchers that there’s going to be outings where you’re not going to have your best stuff or your best command, but you’ve got to battle through it. I thought he did an unbelievable job of battling through it tonight.
“If you’re going to make a run at this thing and have a successful season, you need a guy to set the tone. He certainly has done that for us. He’s done everything that we could possibly ask from him up to this point.”
LSU (15-7, 1-3) scored a run in both the eighth and ninth innings off of Nick Ficarrotta to avoid being shut out.
Florida and LSU will play game two of the series on Saturday at 6:30.