It’s important not to overreact to one baseball game, particularly a midweek game. College baseball is a 56-game marathon, not a sprint. There will be times throughout the season when everything seems to be clicking at once, and the Gators will look unbeatable. There will be other times when you wonder how such a talented team can play so terribly. Most of the season will be somewhere in between.
Then there’s the fact that baseball is inherently a sport of parity. All it takes is one pitch or one swing of the bat to change the outcome of the game. Add college baseball’s severe scholarship limits to the mix, and results like the one that played out at Florida Ballpark on Wednesday night are bound to happen from time to time.
Still, Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan is very concerned about what he saw in the No. 6 Gators’ 3-2 loss in 10 innings to No. 21 Florida Atlantic. He saw a group of men in orange jerseys that was unfocused.
“I don’t think they were ready to play,” O’Sullivan said. “That falls on me. I don’t know. Credit FAU. They drove close to five hours on the way up, and they’ve got a five-hour drive back home. They played more inspired than we did.”
It’s hard to argue with that last sentence. The Gators (6-3) committed three errors. They produced just five hits and struck out 14 times. The Owls’ pitchers didn’t do anything special; UF’s batters chased too many pitches out of the strike zone and watched too many hittable pitches cross over the plate for called strikes.
O’Sullivan is perplexed by the timing of the egg his team laid on Wednesday night. With the way last season ended prematurely and the excitement surrounding the new stadium, there’s no excuse for the players not to be dialed in and jacked up to play against anybody at any time.
“If you watched the game, you could tell there was a different feel,” he said. “Like I said, I don’t understand it. If we’re playing in the big leagues and we’re playing a 162-game schedule and it’s in the middle of July and you’re playing six, seven, eight days in a row, maybe you could understand. We’re nine games in, and we’re going to come out flat? That’s just not acceptable. It’s just that simple. It bothers me. There’s been a lot of work and effort to have this facility, and just to think that we’re nine games in and we’re not ready to play, I mean, that’s a real issue.”
Pitcher Garrett Milchin echoed that sentiment.
“I feel like it was just one of those nights where not everybody was clicking; we weren’t gelling together,” Milchin said. “None of us are really happy around the facility tonight.”
O’Sullivan also accused his players of letting some selfishness creep into their play. Instead of putting poor at bats behind them and playing the best defense they possibly can, he thinks some of the players are throwing a pity party for themselves and letting their offense negatively impact their defense. That is a selfish mindset, and it hurts the team.
“There are certain guys that are not swinging the bat as well as they’d like, and their body language is not good,” he said. “It’s affecting their defense, and it’s not an individualized sport. It’s a team sport, and we’re going to have to address that. Luckily enough for us, it’s early in the year.
“Probably a couple of guys just thinking about themselves and feeling sorry for themselves. That’s just not acceptable.”
While O’Sullivan refused to name the specific players that he referred to, it doesn’t take rocket science to figure out that shortstop Josh Rivera is one of them. He’s collected just two hits in his last 25 at bats, and he’s committed six of the team’s 16 errors. He slammed his bat down in frustration after popping out in one of the games against Samford last weekend. His fielding error in the 10th inning against FAU (7-1) led to the winning run. O’Sullivan may have no choice but to put him on the bench when Kirby McMullen is healthy enough to start again.
Of course, what transpired on Wednesday night may prove to be an outlier in the long run. Just because the Gators came out flat one time doesn’t mean that the entire season is destined for failure. However, based on O’Sullivan’s fiery postgame comments, it sounds like there might be some changes made shortly if some attitude adjustments aren’t made.
The Gators will play Florida A&M in a three-game series this weekend. They may sweep the Rattlers or they might not, but you can just about bet the farm that the Gators will look energized and ready to play.
Or else.