The Gators had one of the best pitchers in the country on the ropes in the top of the sixth inning on Friday night.
With the game still scoreless, Georgia starter Jonathan Cannon hit Sterlin Thompson with an 0-2 breaking ball to lead off the inning. Then, he issued just his third walk of the season to Wyatt Langford. BT Riopelle laid down a perfect bunt down the third-base line to load the bases with nobody out.
Cannon’s pitch count was over 100. The Gators were one swing of the bat away from claiming a commanding lead and the momentum.
But they didn’t capitalize.
Instead, Kendrick Calilao hit a groundball to third. Josh McAllister made a diving stop and threw Thompson out at the plate. Deric Fabian popped out to the catcher, Josh Rivera flied out to left, and the Gators didn’t score.
Georgia took advantage of the sudden momentum change in the bottom of the inning. UF starter Brandon Sproat plunked Corey Collins with a 1-2 pitch, and Connor Tate singled to left. A failed sacrifice bunt attempt put runners on the corners with one out, and a perfectly executed suicide squeeze bunt by Chaney Rogers scored the first run of the game and allowed Rogers to be safe at first.
Parks Harber smashed a double off of the wall in left to make it 3-0.
In a matter of minutes, the Gators went from being on the verge of taking a 3-0 lead to trailing 3-0.
That sequence ended up being the defining moment of the game, as the No. 23 Bulldogs ran away with a 6-1 victory over the No. 14 Gators to clinch the series at Foley Field.
“If we would’ve moved the ball a little bit better there with the bases loaded and nobody out, we could’ve scored a couple runs,” UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “And I think they went to [Jack] Gowen a little bit earlier than they wanted to, and he was wild when he came in, and he didn’t have command of his fastball tonight.”
While not scoring with the bases loaded and nobody out in the sixth was the most egregious example of the Gators (18-9, 3-5 SEC) not capitalizing on scoring opportunities, it wasn’t the only instance that it happened.
UF recorded eight hits, but they went just 2-for-15 with runners on base. Five of those eight hits came from Mac Guscette (3-for-4) and Riopelle (2-for-4). The top two batters in the lineup, Colby Halter and Jud Fabian, went a combined 0-for-9 with three strikeouts.
Thompson hit a two-out double in the first, but Langford grounded out. Back-to-back singles by Rivera and Guscette put two runners on with one out in the fifth, but Halter and Fabian were unable to come through.
In the seventh inning, after the Bulldogs took the 3-0 lead, the Gators put runners on second and third with one out against Gowen. Thompson lofted a fly ball to medium-deep left field. Left fielder Connor Tate made the catch, and Guscette tagged up and tried to score from third. Tate’s throw hit the cutoff man, McAllister, perfectly, and McAllister threw Guscette out at the plate to end the inning and keep the Gators off of the scoreboard.
Langford led off the eighth with a long home run to left-center field. Obviously, Georgia (21-6, 5-3) may have pitched Langford differently if there were runners on base, but O’Sullivan views Guscette getting thrown out at the plate the inning prior as a three-run mistake.
“His run means nothing,” he said. “The left fielder is coming in on the ball. He’s not retreating towards the warning track, and we get thrown out at the plate to end the inning. And then, sure enough, Wyatt comes up the next inning and hits a home run. I’m not quite sure why the mistake was made, but, obviously, that was not a good decision on the basepaths.”
On the other side, Sproat pitched much better after struggling majorly in his last two starts. He kept the Bulldogs scoreless through five innings and struck out eight batters, which tied a career high.
He struck out the side in the first and wiggled out of a bases-loaded jam in the second. He stranded one runner in both the third and fourth innings before tossing a clean fifth inning. The box score shows him as the losing pitcher, but he did what was expected of him. He put his team in an excellent position to win the game, but the offense just didn’t come through with the clutch hits that they needed.
“Brandon threw the ball really good, and, if he continues to throw like that for the rest of the year, he’s going to certainly give us a chance every time he goes out to the mound,” O’Sullivan said. “The only mistake he made, we started that [sixth] inning with a hit by pitch with Collins on a 1-2 count, and that kind of got things going. That’s kind of what’s happened to us this year. We gave up three, but the double that the guy hit with runners on base, that happens. The whole inning got started with a hit by pitch.
“I don’t want to take away from the effort Brandon had tonight. He was really, really good, and the guy goes six innings, gives up three. That’s a quality start. He attacked the strike zone, so I’m really pleased with his start.”
Philip Abner threw a scoreless seventh inning, but the Bulldogs struck for three more runs in the eighth off of Nick Ficarrotta to end any chance of a Florida comeback. That inning also began with a walk.
“If we just would’ve kept it close when we went to the bullpen in the eighth and just kept it a two-run game, who knows what could’ve happened?” O’Sullivan said. “We’re asking guys to come in and just go one inning and get three outs and just keep it close, and, right now, some guys are struggling doing that.”
The Gators have now lost four SEC games in a row, and they’ve got a gauntlet of tough games coming up, including series against top-10 Arkansas, Vanderbilt and Tennessee teams. This season could get away from them very quickly to the point where even making the NCAA Tournament would be in question.
They need to avoid the sweep on Saturday in the worst way possible.
“At some point, we’ve got to take this thing personal, and we’ve got to clean it up,” O’Sullivan said. “We have no other choice but to keep working at this thing, and, obviously, the first two games have been disappointing. We’ve lost them in a couple different ways, but, at the end of the day, we’ve got to come out [Saturday] and play our best baseball.”