One of the biggest issues coach Kevin O’Sullivan noticed in his pitching staff in the series loss to Miami was the lack of efficiency by the starters.
He wanted each of them to throw six innings. Instead, Tommy Mace and Jack Leftwich only made it through five innings due to a high pitch count. Hunter Barco didn’t make it out of the fourth inning due to ineffectiveness. When they had opportunities to retire the side in order and make it through an inning in 10 pitches or so, they didn’t take advantage often enough. The lack of efficiency forced O’Sullivan to tax his injury-plagued bullpen more than he wanted to, which left them thin come Sunday.
O’Sullivan challenged his starters this week to get back to pitching like you’ve come to expect from UF’s weekend rotation.
So far, so good. Mace was as sharp as he’s been in his college career on Friday night. He tossed six innings and conceded three hits and no runs. He struck out a career-high 11 batters and walked none. He set the tone for No. 7 Florida’s 8-4 defeat of Samford (3-2) at Florida Ballpark.
His fastball had a little more zip on it than usual, sitting at 94-95 miles per hour with great movement. He also had pinpoint command of his curveball, which kept Bulldogs batters off balance and out of sorts all night.
“Sully was just talking about going six innings … and give our bullpen a good start to the weekend and not tax guys and let guys stay fresh throughout the weekend,” Mace said. “I think that was something that we had to work on coming out of Miami. But just getting those quality starts out of our guys is key.”
Mace set the Bulldogs down in order in four of his six innings. He only ran into trouble once, in the third inning. He surrendered a pair of one-out singles to Taylor Garris and Max Pinto. With the Gators (4-2) only leading 2-0 at the time, Mace buckled down and stuck out the next two batters to end the threat.
“They get a couple runs there, and next thing you know, they probably feel a little bit different in their dugout,” O’Sullivan said. “I think that was the only hiccup he had. I think those were the eight- and nine-hole hitters. He went 3-2 on the eight-hole, and then gave up an 0-2 hit to the nine-hole hitter. Probably a lack of concentration at that point. But, other than that, I don’t have any complaints with the way he threw. I thought he was really sharp. They’ve got a good lineup, but his command on the outer half of the plate was really, really good tonight.”
Meanwhile, after a couple of poor at bats in the first inning, UF’s bats came to life in the second inning. Freshman Jordan Carrion picked up his first two collegiate RBI with an opposite field single with two outs. Jud Fabian blasted his third home run in the last two games in the third. Kris Armstrong and Colby Halter picked up RBI in the fourth inning, as did Jacob Young, who tied Jonathan India’s mark for the longest hitting streak of the O’Sullivan era (24 games).
The offensive MVP of the night, however, was freshman Sterlin Thompson. He led off the three-run fourth inning with an opposite field single. An inning later, he tripled down the right field line to drive in a run. The ball then sailed past the third baseman as it was thrown back into the infield, which allowed Thompson to score a Little League home run. He’s now second on the team with a .375 batting average.
“I’m just trying to slow the game down,” Thompson said. “I’m trying to find the right pitch. Don’t swing at any bad pitches and just swing at really good pitches that I can do damage with. So far throughout the season, I’ve been pretty good discipline-wise and just trying to find a pitch I can do damage with.”
While the offense was fun to watch once again, Friday night was all about Mace the ace. After a tough opening weekend, he got things trending in a positive direction for this series and kept the bullpen fresh against Samford’s upperclassmen-heavy lineup.
Just like your Friday night guy is supposed to do.
“He was really sharp,” O’Sullivan said. “He really commanded the outer half of the plate. His misses were small. I thought he was outstanding. We kind of challenged them this week to kind of get back to what we think they are, and, obviously, he responded tonight, and he set the tone for the weekend.”