Gator Baseball Woes Continue! It's gotta be the pitching (it is)

“Second verse, same as the first; a little bit louder and a whole lot worse” – from “Henery the Eighth” by Harry Champion, circa 1910

Photo credit UAA

Except for the games Jac Caglianone has pitched the last two Sundays, the second verse for Florida pitchers is a bit louder and indeed a whole lot worse. Florida State hitters wore out nine Florida pitchers Tuesday night at Condon Family Ballpark. Thirteen hits, 10 walks and a hit batter equated to the Seminoles sticking it to the 8th-ranked Gators to the tune of 12-8 before an overflow crowd of 8,142.

The Seminoles remained unbeaten (15-0) while the Gators (10-6) lost their fourth game in the last six. That in itself is bad news, but making matters worse is the opening weekend of Southeastern Conference play starting Friday when the unbeaten and 4th-ranked Texas A&M Aggies (16-0) come to Gainesville sporting the best team ERA (1.62) in the nation and an offense that hits at a .316 clip, scores 10 runs a game and hits the ball out of the yard with great frequency.  

Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan was hoping to get a solid 3-inning start from freshman Alex Philpott Tuesday. He got a rather good first inning but the wheels began to come off in the second when he loaded the bases on an infield single and a pair of walks. After giving up a sacrifice fly that gave FSU a 1-0 lead, Philpott induced a ground ball that should have been out three, but Cade Kurland couldn’t handle it, allowing two unearned runs to score.

That was the beginning of a nightmare for the Gators. It was 7-0 through the top of the fourth when the Gators rallied for five runs on a sacrifice fly by Dale Thomas and a grand slam by Cade Kurland. That’s when O’Sullivan needed his relief pitchers to silence the Seminole bats, but no matter who he put out there, the Seminoles kept the pressure on, scoring three in the sixth and two more in the eighth.

Florida did add one in the bottom of the eighth on a wild pitch and two in the ninth on an inside-the-park home run by Ty Evans.

Before the game, O’Sullivan and his staff scripted what they wanted out of the pitching staff with the team, but obviously, things didn’t quite work out as planned.

“I mean we kind of scripted it before the game,” O’Sullivan said. “We sat right in here and said okay, this is what we expect Alex to do and three innings max, and we get an inning and two-thirds and then we tried to follow a freshman with an older guy to kind of stop the bleeding. We brought the two lefties in, they went left, right, left at the bottom and turned the lineup back over to another left-hander. So we tried to set up everything perfectly for them. We tried to use, you know tried to be careful about who we brought in, in the middle of an inning. So it was all scripted, but obviously it didn’t go the way we wanted it to.”

What is frustrating for O’Sullivan is that although this is one of the youngest pitching staffs he has had at Florida, it’s a staff loaded with quality arms that can throw with high velocity. After fall practice and when the team reconvened after New Year to begin preparation for the season, O’Sullivan felt confident his young guys could get the job done but 16 games into the season the Gators have a team earned run average of 5.72.

“Anybody that’s in this room or anybody that came to practice, because they’re open, they’ve seen all these guys have success in the fall against our hitters,” O’Sullivan said. “Yes, so it’s a bit surprising. We’ve only played 16 games but this has been going on since the beginning of the year. So I mean, it’s not like things were kind of easy and we had success the first five or six games or so, seven games, and then all of a sudden they kind of got themselves in this situation. This started day since day one. I really don’t have any answer right now. We’ve got to figure this out.”

It's easy to point a finger at coaches but O’Sullivan knows this is a two-way street moving forward if the Gators are to right the ship. Texas A&M looks formidable this weekend and that will be followed by a road trip to face No. 2 LSU, which beat the Gators in the championship game at the College World Series last year.

There were no answers tonight, but the search for what it will take to fix the Florida pitching staff will begin in earnest today.

“I'm going to sleep on it and we will practice tomorrow and we will go through it,” O’Sullivan said. “Tonight is not the night to go through it. There are so many things that I've got written down that continue to happen, and you know the bottom line is we put ourselves in really poor situations and a lot of it is self-inflicted. We're going to have to fix it, or you know somehow figure it out. But at some point, the players themselves are going to have take some sort of accountability with what's going on, but it's disappointing, honestly."

UF SOFTBALL: 10th-ranked Gators host Stetson

Fresh off winning their initial Southeastern Conference series of the season at Alabama, the 10th-ranked Gators (21-4) will begin an 8-game home stand tonight against Stetson (9-15) at Katie Seashole Presley Stadium (6 p.m., SEC Network+). The Gators rose to No. 10 in the ESPN and USA Today polls, to No. 11 in the D1Softball poll.

Ava Brown, who splits her time between pitching and first base, was selected D1Softball National Freshman of the Week and Southeastern Conference co-Freshman of the Week. Brown is 9-1 in the circle (1.23 ERA) and hitting .346 with five home runs and 16 RBI.

ESPN/USA Softball top 25: 1. Oklahoma 22-1; 2. LSU 22-0; 3. Texas 21-2; 4. Duke 19-1; 5. Georgia 20-3; 6. Stanford 18-4; 7. Oklahoma State 20-3; 8. Washington 18-3; 9. Tennessee 18-4; 10. FLORIDA 21-3; 11. Missouri 20-3; 12. Virginia Tech 18-2-1; 13. Baylor 14-5; 14. Clemson 17-6; 15. Alabama 19-3; 16. UCLA 14-6; 17. Texas A&M 23-2; 18. Florida State 15-5; 19. California 21-4; 20. Arkansas 20-5; 21. Mississippi State 19-4; 22. South Carolina 18-5; 23. Kentucky 14-7; 24. Oregon 14-9; 25. Arizona 19-5-1

USA Today/NFCA top 25: 1. Oklahoma 22-1; 2. LSU 22-0; 3. Texas 21-2; 4. Oklahoma State 20-3; 5. Georgia 20-3; 6. Duke 19-1; 7. Washington 18-3; 8. Tennessee 18-4; 9. Stanford 18-4; 10. FLORIDA 21-3; 11. Missouri 20-3; 12. Clemson 17-6; 13. Texas A&M 23-2; 14. Alabama 19-3; 15. UCLA 14-6; 16. Florida State 15-5; 17. California 21-4; 18. Virginia Tech 18-3-1; 19. Baylor 14-5; 20. Arkansas 20-5; 21. Mississippi State 19-4; 22. Arizona 19-5-1; 23. South Carolina 18-5; 24. Boston University 17-1; 25. Auburn 13-4-1

D1Softball top 25: 1. Oklahoma 22-1; 2. LSU 22-0; 3. Texas 21-2; 4. Oklahoma State 20-3; 5. Stanford 18-4; 6. Duke 19-1; 7. Georgia 20-3; 8. Washington 18-3; 9. Tennessee 18-4; 10. Baylor 14-5; 11. FLORIDA 21-4; 12. Missouri 20-3; 13. Clemson 17-6; 14. Virginia Tech 18-3-1; 15. Alabama 20-3; 16. UCLA 14-6; 17. Texas A&M 23-2; 18. Mississippi State 19-4; 19. Arkansas 20-5; 20. Arizona 19-5-1; 21. California 21-4; 22. Boston University 17-1; 23. South Carolina; 24. Florida State 15-5; 25. Texas State 19-6

UF TENNIS: Gators win doubleheader with Tennessee State

In a rare midweek doubleheader, the Gators tuned up for their weekend SEC matches by beating Tennessee State 6-1 and 4-1, improving to 8-6 on the season. The Gators (2-2 SEC) will be on the road this weekend, at Auburn Friday and at Alabama on Sunday.

Florida’s 16th-ranked women will be home this weekend, hosting Auburn on Friday and Alabama on Saturday.

ITA Women’s top 25: 1. Oklahoma State 15-0; 2. Michigan 12-3; 3. Stanford 12-1; 4. Pepperdine 8-3; 5. Virginia 12-2; 6. North Carolina 13-2; 7. Texas 10-3; 8. North Carolina State 13-3; 9. Southern California 10-4; 10. Georgia 9-3; 11. Ohio State 7-5; 12. California 7-2; 13. Auburn 10-5; 14. Texas A&M 12-5; 15. San Diego 8-3; 16. FLORIDA 6-7; 17. Alabama 13-1; 18. UCLA 7-3; 19. South Carolina 9-4; 20. Miami 4-3; 21. Oklahoma 7-4; 22. Tennessee 10-4; 23. Georgia Tech 8-6; 24. Duke 9-5; 25. Wisconsin 10-2

ITA Men’s top 25: 1. Ohio State 16-1; 2. TCU 11-1; 3. Virginia 12-4; 4. Wake Forest 14-4; 5. Arizona 14-2; 6. Kentucky 12-2; 7. Columbia 9-2; 8. Tennessee 15-3; 9. Texas 10-3; 10. Harvard 10-4; 11. Illinois 7-4; 12. Texas A&M 13-3; 13. Florida State 13-2; 14. San Diego 10-2; 15. Mississippi State 10-4; 16. South Carolina 7-7; 17. Duke 11-7; 18. North Carolina State 10-4; 19. Baylor 14-4; 20. Memphis 10-3; 21. Oklahoma 10-2; 22. Arizona State 10-5; 23. Michigan State 14-3; 24. Alabama 11-7; 25. FLORIDA 6-6

UF WOMEN’S GOLF: Gators finish sixth at Briar’s Creek

The Gators posted a 3-day total of 875 to finish sixth place in the Briar’s Creek Invitational at John’s Island, South Carolina. Florida’s 11-over par score was 15 shots behind tournament champion Michigan State. Freshman Ines Archer was -1 for the tournament (215) to finish in a tie for seventh place.

ONE FINAL PITHY THOUGHT: Let’s get real for a moment. The offense wasn’t and hasn’t been the problem the last two years for Billy Napier. Has it been as explosive or as efficient as he would like? You know the answer to that, too. The Gators have scored enough points to be at least 19-6 the last two years.

The problem has been on the other side of the football, which is why Ron Roberts was brought in to be the fixer. He’s been a head coach and he’s earned a reputation as a defensive savant with his creeper defense. A creeper defense incorporates a 4-man pass rush that brings one or two second or third level defenders while dropping one or two first level defenders into coverage. The second or third level defenders are your creepers. It’s primarily a zone that looks like man coverage and if the creepers don’t give away their intentions too early, it can have devastating consequences for opposing quarterbacks.

Roberts was the defensive coordinator at Auburn last year, brought in by Hugh Freeze to take a unit that was highly erratic the previous year under a different head coach and turn it functional. Despite obvious talent deficiencies, Roberts got the Auburn defense to slice a touchdown (from 29.5 to 22.6) and four first downs off its previous season.

That is the task at Florida this year where Roberts reunites with Austin Armstrong, who was his graduate assistant at Louisiana. Roberts calls Armstrong “brilliant” but it will be his job as the co-defensive coordinator to bring out the brilliance. A year ago, in his first year as an SEC coordinator, Armstrong’s UF defense was near the bottom of the SEC in sacks, dead last in interceptions and one of the worst tackling teams in the entire country.

Roberts is here, a second stint under Billy Napier, charged with turning the Gators into a team that can get stops, sack quarterbacks, turn the ball over and put opposing backs and receivers on the ground.

It all starts with the tackling.

“I think there are some certain basic fundamentals that you’ve got to believe in, that you’ve got to preach and make sure they buy in,” Roberts said after practice last Saturday. “One thing that helps is you do that for a couple of years and then it starts compounding, so it’s been going on here. It’s been going on here, but again, we’ve got to emphasize it. We’ve got to be great in that category. That’s what the game is about. You do all the all stuff, and you can draw it up, but if you can’t tackle them and get them on the ground, it’s kind of a problem. So, we’ll focus on those basics and those fundamentals and make sure we’re getting better as a group.”

A few tackled opponents here, a few there the last two years and the outlook for 2024 for the Gators would be far different. Now with a revamped defensive staff, some key personnel brought in from the portal and kids who are a year older, the Gators should be better, but improvement will have to be made against a brutal schedule that is thought to be the most difficult in the nation for 2024.

“We’re the University of Florida,” Roberts said. “We should expect to play the best in the country, and we expect to win on Saturday. I think there’s got to be that part, that the swagger has to come with it too. That’s it. That’s who you want to play on Saturdays. Bring it on. Bring out the best in us, too. Let’s go.”