One of the biggest concerns for the Gators heading into this weekend’s series with No. 1 Tennessee was how their beleaguered pitching staff would hold up against the best offense in the SEC without ace Hunter Barco available.
Surprisingly, they’ve done fairly well through the first two games. If you take out the seven-run second inning on Friday, they’ve given up four runs on 10 hits in 17 innings. Everybody involved with the UF program would’ve absolutely taken those results heading into the series.
Unfortunately, the Gators’ offense has failed them. After notching just three hits in the opener on Friday, Tennessee pitchers Blade Tidwell and Camden Sewell pitched a two-hit shutout to lead their team to a 3-0 series-clinching victory on Saturday evening.
“We’ve got to get the bats going a little bit,” coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “Obviously, you’ve got to credit their pitchers. They were good again tonight. Tidwell was really good. I had him this summer with the USA team. He was good, so we’re just going to have to put it behind us, as difficult as it is, and be ready to go [on Sunday].”
Tidwell got the start and gave up both of the hits in 4 2/3 innings. He struck out five Gators and walked just one. The sidewinding Sewell fired the final 4 1/3 frames and gave up a walk and hit two batters but never faced much of a challenge.
Florida’s trio of pitchers nearly matched them pitch for pitch, but a couple of long balls by the Volunteers (36-3, 16-1 SEC) ended up being their demise. Starter Brandon Sproat was charged with the loss after giving up all three runs on five hits in six innings. He struck out four and walked four. Philip Abner recorded a pair of strikeouts, and Nick Ficarrotta faced the minimum and struck out four batters in 2 1/3 innings.
The Gators (23-16, 6-11) put together some quality at bats and made some hard contact against Tidwell in the early innings, but the results didn’t work out in their favor.
They had a couple of chances to score and grab the lead in the middle innings. Sterlin Thompson broke up Tidwell’s perfect game with a two-out single to right in the bottom of the fourth. Wyatt Langford followed by smashing a pitch that hit the ground just in front of third baseman Trey Lipscomb. Lipscomb wasn’t able to corral it, and the ball deflected off of his glove and high into the air for an infield single.
BT Riopelle got himself into a 3-0 count, but Tidwell threw three consecutive strikes to punch him out and end the threat.
An inning later, Josh Rivera drew a one-out walk and stole second. Mac Guscette got a pitch up in the zone and hit it hard but right at center fielder Drew Gilbert. Sewell entered to face Deric Fabian and got him to fly out to Gilbert to end the inning.
Meanwhile, Tennessee ambushed a pair of first-pitch fastballs by Sproat to score the only runs of the game. Luc Lipcius led off the fifth with a blast over the Gators’ bullpen in right-center field, and Gilbert launched a two-run shot to a similar spot in the sixth.
“[Sproat’s] been throwing the ball really good for us,” O’Sullivan said. “For the most part, ever since we started conference play, he’s been pretty good. Tonight was really good, too. He gave us a chance to win. Sometimes, you’ve got to tip your cap.”
Sewell hit Colby Halter with a 2-2 fastball to lead off the bottom of the sixth and ran the count full on Jud Fabian. Prior to the pitch, Sewell caught Halter leaning toward second and picked him off. His next pitch was ball four to Fabian. If Halter hadn’t gotten picked off, the Gators would’ve been in excellent shape to at least score one run. Instead, Sewell retired the next two batters without much of an issue.
Sewell faced the minimum over the final three innings to pick up his first save of the year, including striking out the side in the ninth.
The Gators will try to avoid being swept at home in the finale on Sunday at noon. They’ll send freshman Brandon Neely to the mound for his third career start.
“We’ve just got to play better,” O’Sullivan said. “That’s as simple as that. We play better in all three phases, whether it be pitching, defensively, baserunning, offensively, if we play better, then the wins and losses will take care of themselves.
“There’s teams that have gotten hot at the end and have made a run at this thing. The only thing we can do is just approach each game differently. There’s nothing we can do about last night; there’s nothing we can do about tonight. We’ve just got to be ready to play [on Sunday] and build off of what Neely was able to do last Sunday against Vandy.”