Trouble? No Problem. Gators Are A Win Away From The College World Series

Jac Caglianone (14) greeted at home plate after his 3-run homer against Clemson (UAA Photo)

“For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble” – Butch Cassidy from the 1969 film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”

For a moment Saturday afternoon the Florida Gators seemed to be in real trouble. Down 4-2 to Clemson through the first four innings, this had the feel of a game that could spiral out of control for the Gators. Florida starter Liam Peterson lasted one inning. Reliever Fisher Jameson had given up a suborbital blast to left field so high and so far that no one in the broadcast booth actually saw it return to earth. Clemson lefty Tristan Smith had a fast ball going that probably seemed like it was 100-plus on the gun the way he mixed it up with a wicked change-up and a slider that had all sorts of movement.

What happened in the fifth inning of Florida’s 10-7 win in the Clemson Super Regional is what football coaches call sudden change, that instant when a mistake or bad decision causes a momentum shift. Michael Robertson coaxed a walk out of Smith although Clemson fans will swear in unison that home plate umpire Scott Letendre should have called strike three on the fifth of a 7-pitch at bat. Cade Kurland didn’t give Letendre a chance for a makeup call. He looped a single to right center on an 0-2 count that sent Robertson scurrying to third.

Up to the plate stepped Jac Caglianone, who had rocketed a single off the right field wall in the third. Decision time for Clemson coach Erik Bakich. There was an open base so walking Caglianone was an option even if it meant loading the bases. Colby Shelton and Luke Heyman, the next two hitters behind Caglianone, were a combined 0-4 at the time and neither had hit anything that even remotely resembled the laser beam Cag hit in the third.

Rather than take his chances with Shelton and Heyman, Bakich elected to pitch to Caglianone, not exactly one of the wiser decisions the Clemson coach made that day. On an 0-1 count, Smith left a ball out over the plate. Rather than try to pull the ball, which he would have almost certainly done a year ago, Caglianone went with the pitch and sent it flying a few rows in the stands beyond the left field fence.

Just like that Florida had a 5-4 lead. Given Florida’s history holding onto leads prior to mid-May, a 1-run lead could only be classified as shaky, but this isn’t the same team that kept finding creative ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the first three months of the season. The Gators played and won three straight elimination games last week in Stillwater to win the regional. The Gators of March and April couldn’t have done that.

In hindsight, Bakich rationalized, “He (Caglianone) did what good players do and got a hit, but it was a 1-run game. The dagger was we allowed four more runs to score.”

True, it was only one home run and the Gators did pour it on for a 9-4 lead before the third out of the fifth, but pitching to Caglianone, who is 14-30 in Florida’s last nine games, is a gamble whether the bases are empty or full. It would seem less of a gamble to pitch to Shelton and Heyman, who both have this nasty habit of striking out a lot (Shelton 71 times, Heyman 63; Caglianone, by contrast has struck out only 23 times all season). Given their frequency of swings and misses, it would seem that Clemson’s odds were better escaping the fifth no worse than tied at 4-4 than they were of plugging up the floodgates that were opened by pitching to the most dangerous hitter in all of college baseball.

The way Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan described things post game, the Gators were more hopeful than confident up until the time Caglianone came to the rescue. There are times when 4-2 deficits have the feeling of a game teetering on the verge of slip sliding away. This was one of those games.

“I just felt like if we could hold it together and maybe get a couple of guys on, hopefully one of our players would run into a ball, and Jac obviously did that,” O’Sullivan said.

The home run essentially sucked all the oxygen out of 90 percent of the fans jammed into Doug Kingsmore Stadium. Superstars have a way of doing that when they seize That kind of thing happens when superstars come through in critical moments. Momentum clearly shifted Florida’s way but there was still the problem of holding onto the lead.

Jameson, who took over for Peterson in the second with the Gators trailing 3-0, gave up a home run to Jimmy Overtop in the third and another home run by Tristan Bissetta in the fifth, ran into problems in the sixth when he walked the leadoff batter. Cade Fisher came on and gave up a single to the only batter he faced.

Trouble once again. The answer this time was Brandon Neely, who spent February, March, April and until mid-May trying to regain what made him an All-American closer a year ago. Since taking two losses in the Kentucky series a month ago, Neely has gone 16-2/3 innings, allowing just seven hits and one run while walking just five and striking out 25 batters. In preserving the Gators’ the first of two regional wins over Oklahoma State, Neely went 5-2/3 innings, allowing one hit while walking three and striking out 11.

Yogi Berra would call what happened against Clemson déjà vu all over again, because for the second straight outing, Neely was untouchable. He challenged the Clemson hitters who managed only one measly 7th-inning single that was erased by a slick Kurland to Shelton to Caglianone double play. Once he took the ball from O’Sullivan, Neely knew it was his game to win or lose, so he dominated, closing out a 4-inning stint by giving up just one hit and walking three while striking out seven.

Neely struck out the side in the eighth and walked a batter with two out in the ninth. Even as he worked the final batter, Neely’s fast ball was clocking 95-96 miles per hour.  This is the Neely Kevin O’Sullivan thought he was getting when the season began back in February.

Back in February, Florida was expected to have the talent that could take the Gators on a magic carpet ride to Omaha for the College World Series. It’s silly to rehash all the problems this team has had to solve, but they have put it all together at just the right time. By winning the Stillwater Regional and taking game one of the Clemson Super Regional, the Gators are no longer the team that so many believe got into the NCAA tournament on reputation alone. Now, even the naysayers have to admit the Gators are playing like a team capable of winning and advancing.

The Gators could advance as soon as today (2:30, ESPN). Because the Gators won game one of a 3-game series, the pressure is all on Clemson (44-15), which has to beat Florida twice to advance to the College World Series in Omaha. Since dropping two of three to Kentucky in the regular season, the Gators are 7-3 and playing like a team that knows how to handle trouble.

This season didn’t begin the way Kevin O’Sullivan envisioned, but it’s not about how your team started. It’s all about how you finish and right now the Gators are playing like a team ready to take care of a season's worth of unfinished business.