There’s no more looking ahead for the No. 9 Florida baseball team, if indeed that was part of the problem Wednesday night when the Gators were drilled 17-5 at McKethan Stadium by Florida Gulf Coast University, a setback that ended an eight-game winning streak.
Friday night, the Gators (34-15, 16-8 SEC East), who have surged into a two-game lead in the SEC East Division thanks to a sweep at Georgia last weekend, get a big-time measuring stick – No. 3 Louisiana State (36-13, 16-8 SEC West) in the first of a three-game set at Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge. Game time is 8 p.m. ET and Cox Sports will televise the game back to Gainesville-Ocala. Sun Sports has Saturday night’s game at 8, while Sunday’s 1 p.m. game will be televised by Cox Sports.
Florida, LSU and Mississippi, which also is 16-8 and tied for first in the West, are all jockeying for the No. 1 seed in the SEC Baseball Tournament at Hoover, Ala. But head coach Kevin O’Sullivan doesn’t believe his young team, one of the surprise teams in SEC and all of college baseball, was looking ahead Wednesday when they played the Eagles.
“I would hope not,” he said. “This (season) is a long stretch, long grind. We’ve got eight or nine guys we’re depending on and none of them pitched.”
O’Sullivan didn’t want to make excuses for the loss, but the Gators rested their entire bullpen after they were overused last weekend at Georgia.
“We rode our bullpen hard at Georgia so we wanted to give those guys a rest this week so hopefully they’ll be ready to go,” O’Sullivan said. “We know we’ve got our hands full.”
That will be evident when the Gators take the field at Alex Box Stadium, which averages a conference best 9,390 fans. The brand new stadium has held over 10,000 fans four times this season, and it has hosted the seven largest crowds at any SEC game this season. It gives the Tigers an enormous home-field advantage, evident in their 25-8 home record.
O’Sullivan knows that his team will step into a tough environment that demands almost perfect baseball for the road team to win.
“Every series is important,” O’Sullivan said. “As good as we felt last weekend leaving Georgia, we’ve been on the other side of that. It really does go week-to-week. We’ve got a lot riding on this weekend. We’ve got a chance to win the SEC regular season, we’ve got a chance to solidify our hosting (and NCAA Regional). We can even put ourselves in as one of those national seeds (which could assure a possible NCAA Super Regional host spot). Our players know how important it is, but it’s not more important than last weekend and it will be no more important than next weekend.”
LSU head coach Paul Mainieri leads his team into the second of two back-to-back big weekends for his club. They won two of three games at Arkansas last weekend, and he knows the winner of this series against Florida will vault the Gators into good position to win the SEC regular season.
“We have a huge weekend against Florida,” Mainieri said. “I’ve had enough people telling me that so I’m just repeating what they’re telling me. My response to them has been we say that every weekend in this league. That’s what makes the SEC so much fun and exciting. Every weekend in the SEC has such implications; it’s what makes the SEC so much fun. We should have an electric atmosphere with enormous crowds.”
Mainieri has a lot of respect for what O’Sullivan has done in his short time as the Florida head coach. O’Sullivan took over a team last season that missed the postseason in the previous two seasons and led them to the No. 2 seed in the Tallahassee NCAA Regional. Now he has the Gators in the thick of hosting a regional in only his second season.
“I talked to Kevin a few days ago and I told him that I thought he’s done an phenomenal job,” Mainieri said. “We always knew Kevin was a great recruiter and there’s really good players in Florida. I thought he would find the best ones and recruit them to Gainesville and he’s done that. They’re very talented. The last two years I thought they were very talented, too. I can imagine that he’s just added more personnel. It’s hard to find a weakness. If you love college baseball, you’d love to watch this series.”
The Tigers’ pitching staff boasts the fourth best ERA in the SEC at 4.37. The opposition’s .264 batting average against LSU is the third lowest in the SEC. In 430 innings pitched, the LSU staff has struck out a league-high 488 batters. They have given up the third fewest hits in the SEC (437).
Their pitchers also don’t walk opposing hitters. They have only walked 123 batters on the season, which is the lowest in the SEC and 22 fewer than Florida.
“The pitching staff is dangerous,” O’Sullivan said. “They’ve got three really good starters and a good guy in the back of the bullpen. They lean on their four guys pretty good.”
Sophomore right-hander Anthony Ranaudo leads the Tigers pitching staff. He is 5-3 on the season with a 3.28 ERA. In 71.1 innings pitched, he has struck out 105 batters. He has given up a team-high 12 home runs. He will start Friday night against Florida’s senior left-hander Stephen Locke (3-0, 3.69).
Senior right-hander Louis Coleman is the veteran pitcher of the LSU staff. He is 9-2 with a 2.71 ERA on the season. In 76.1 innings, he has struck out 92 batters. Early in the season, Coleman served as the Friday night starter and then was available for the Sunday game, but the emergence of Matty Ott has allowed him to save his arm as a starting pitcher. Florida will counter with freshman Anthony DeSclafani (5-1, 3.58). The game is at 8 p.m. and will be televised on Sun Sports.
Austin Ross will be LSU’s Sunday starter. He is 5-5 with a 4.88 ERA this season. He has started the most games on the pitching staff this season (12) but only has completed 59 innings. He has given up 64 hits on the season and has allowed opposing batters to hit .281 off him. Florida has not announced a starting pitcher for Sunday and will make the decision based on the shape of their bullpen through the first two games. First pitch Sunday is 1 p.m. ET.
Ott has 11 saves this season and has a team-high 26 appearances. The freshman leads the SEC in saves and has a 2.17 ERA. The Tigers have issues when they cannot go straight from their starting pitcher to Ott as their middle relievers have struggled lately.
With such a solid pitching staff, the Tigers offense almost seems like an embarrassment of riches. They have the third-highest batting average in the SEC at .312 and the second-highest on-base percentage at .404. The Tigers have scored the second-most runs in the SEC with 389. Their batters are patient, leading the SEC with 240 walks.
The Florida catchers have to be ready this weekend, as the Tigers lead the SEC with 90 stolen bases.
The spark plug for the offense is two-sport star Jared Mitchell. He has a .333 batting average with a .470 on-base percentage, which ranks as the eighth best in the conference. The junior left fielder is also tied for first in the SEC with 28 stolen bases. He is fourth on the team with eight home runs. The leadoff hitter also leads the team with 36 walks.
Junior Blake Dean hits third in the Tigers lineup and has caught fire during the second half of the season. He has a .333 batting average with a team-best 48 RBI and 11 home runs, which is the second most on the team.
Cleanup hitter DJ LeMahieu has the team’s best batting average at .352. He only has three home runs and 23 RBI. The draft-eligible sophomore started the season as the team’s shortstop, but has since moved to second base, allowing freshman Austin Nola (.239, 1 HR, 5 RBI) to step in at shortstop.
“They’ve got an experienced lineup,” O’Sullivan said. “They’re very similar to us. They’ve got some power, they can run, they can bunt. They can beat you in a lot of ways offensively.”
Those looking for a weak link in LSU are going to have a tough time trying to find it. Defensively, they lead the SEC with a .974 fielding percentage and have made the fewest errors in the league.
Needless to say, the Gators need to be on top of their game.