After experiencing some growing pains through the first two-thirds of the season, the Gators’ young pitching staff is unquestionably playing its best baseball of the year with the postseason only a few days away.
Through the first 40 games of the season, the Gators had a team ERA of 4.60, and that was with the lighter nonconference portion of the schedule included and with ace Hunter Barco giving them a good start pretty much every week. In the 14 games since then, they’ve posted a team ERA of 2.81, and that’s with 12 of those games being league affairs and with Barco watching from the dugout.
The Gators turned in perhaps their best pitching performance of the season on Friday night against South Carolina. Starter Brandon Neely and relievers Blake Purnell and Anthony Ursitti combined to pitch a three-hit shutout with 11 strikeouts and no walks or hit batters in the Gators’ 8-0 win at Condron Ballpark. It was Florida’s fourth shutout of the season but their first in conference play.
“I thought [Neely’s] pace was really good,” coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “We talked after the Missouri start; I think his wheels were turning a little bit and maybe overanalyzing pitch to pitch at times. I think BT [Riopelle] would give him a sign, and it felt like eternity before he delivered the ball to the plate. I went back and looked at it … and it was like 5-6 seconds by the time he gave him the sign before he started his delivery. I asked him to watch a big league game, and it was like two seconds.
“I think that tonight in itself helped him a little bit to speed up the pace. The first couple of innings, he was still a little bit slow, but, then, by the third inning, I think he got into a really good groove.”
The trio combined to retire the final 19 batters of the game, with Neely responsible for 13 of those outs.
Offensively, Jud Fabian made history by belting his 20th home run of the season. He became just the second Gator to ever hit 20 or more homers in back-to-back seasons, with the other player being Brad Wilkerson in 1997-98. He and Wyatt Langford (21 homers) also became the first UF duo to each hit 20-plus long balls in a season.
Neely didn’t have great command of his off-speed pitches to start the game, which allowed the Gamecocks to notch a hit in each of the first three innings.
South Carolina (26-27, 12-17 SEC) had a great chance to grab the early lead when Braylen Wimmer smashed a hanging slider off of the left-field wall for a leadoff double in the second. The Gamecocks never moved Wimmer off of second, however, as Neely got a flyout and two strikeouts to end the threat.
After stranding three runners in the first two innings, Florida’s offense finally got to Gamecocks starter Noah Hall in the third. In fact, Hall threw 17 pitches before he recorded an out in the inning and 33 pitches before he recorded the second out.
Langford started things by hitting a chopper to third. Third baseman Jalen Vasquez had trouble getting the ball out of his glove and then fired the ball way over the first baseman’s head, which allowed Langford to be safe at second. A wild pitch moved him to third, and Sterlin Thompson opened the scoring with a line-drive single up the middle.
Fabian singled to shallow left center and then stole second to put two runners in scoring position with still nobody out. It looked like the Gators’ chances for a big inning were spoiled when catcher Colin Burgess picked Thompson off of third base following a pitch in the dirt.
Instead, Hall walked BT Riopelle to put two runners on base again. Josh Rivera followed with another routine groundball to third. This time, Vasquez’s throw bounced in the dirt and got past the first baseman. Fabian scored, and two more runners moved into scoring position on the play.
Jac Caglianone made it a 3-0 lead by hitting an RBI groundout to the shortstop.
Hall left the game after that inning with his pitch count at 87, an almost unthinkable number of pitches to throw in just three innings.
Those three runs were all that Neely needed. He found his off-speed command in the fourth and didn’t give up another baserunner in his final four innings.
“I felt really good tonight,” Neely said. “From last outing, I had a little trouble landing my off-speed, and I worked all week. All through high school, I used to flick a softball just to work on spin, and I worked on it all this week. I talked to my old high school pitching coach, and he gave me a good idea to start doing that again, and it really carried over to tonight.”
Neely struck out a career-high 10 batters in seven innings, which tied for the longest outing of his brief career.
“He kind of reminds me of Logan Shore that we had, just a guy that can really pitch,” O’Sullivan said. “There’s other guys that might throw a little bit harder or whatever, but he really locates. He can change speeds. It’s hard to really put innings together because he really doesn’t hurt himself. It seems like he’s always in 1-2 counts or 2-2 counts, rather than 3-1, 2-1 counts. He’s pretty advanced in that sense as far as knowing how to pitch and executing pitches.”
Meanwhile, UF’s offense took advantage of South Carolina’s lack of bullpen depth to gradually stretch the lead out.
Rivera lined a pitch onto the left-field berm for a two-run homer in the fifth off of Cam Tringali.
Fabian led off the seventh with his historic 20th homer of the season, a no-doubter that cleared the stands in left field. It marked his first homer in 10 games.
“It felt really good,” Fabian said. “I was struggling the last seven or eight games, but I just kind of put my head down and kept working. I felt really good [on Thursday] and felt really good tonight. I’m seeing the ball a lot better.”
Later in the seventh inning, Jud’s brother, Deric, picked up an RBI with a two-out double into the left-center gap off of Parker Coyne. It was his first RBI since April 29.
Jud Fabian wrapped up the scoring with an RBI double in the eighth.
He entered the night in the midst of a 3-for-37 slump that featured 15 strikeouts. He matched his hit total over the last nine games combined by going 3-for-4 on Friday. It’s an encouraging sign that the Gators’ three-hole hitter might be starting to heat up again just in time for the postseason.
“This is a hard game, and, when people do struggle, sometimes, that’s not the time to push the panic button,” O’Sullivan said. “He’s got the chance to change the game with one swing of the bat; there’s not many guys that can do that. He does so many other things well. He runs the bases good. He plays outstanding defense. There’s other parts of his game that are extremely valuable, and I was just glad he had a really good night tonight.”
While the Gators (35-19, 15-14) have clinched the series over the Gamecocks, there will still be plenty for them to play for in Saturday’s finale. It will be Voice of the Gators Mick Hubert’s final broadcast before he retires, and the team will honor seven players who are either listed as seniors on the roster or are in their fourth years in the program.
Most significantly, the Gators probably need to complete the sweep to have any kind of chance of hosting an NCAA regional. They entered this series ranked No. 13 in RPI, but you’ve got to think that the selection committee won’t award a regional to a team that went .500 in conference play, even in a league as tough as the SEC is.
With a win on Saturday, the Gators would have 20 wins over power conference opponents on their resume if you count their series victories over Miami and Florida State. Winning on Saturday would also improve their seeding in the SEC Tournament, which would in turn improve their chances of making a deep run and building their case before the selection committee.
“You always want to get hot at the right time, and I think right now we’re getting to a point where we’re really hot,” Jud Fabian said. “We’re going to try to keep that going throughout postseason.”