UF baseball: Another meltdown in a season that's on the brink

Jac Caglianone has been one of the few bright spots for the Gators this season (UAA Photo)

The text from a rather casual acquaintance who is a Tennessee fan came in at 2:13 Sunday morning. “We beat you by two touchdowns! What do you think about that?” After drinking some water, clearing my head and remembering it’s baseball season, I replied with this courtesy of the late, great Yogi Berra:

“If my father was alive to hear that, he’d turn over in his grave.”

The Vol fan answered, “Huh!” I replied, “Exactly.”

A lot of folks are shaking their heads and going huh after Tennessee scored 11 runs in the top of the sixth inning Saturday night at Condron Family Ballpark on the way to a 16-3 run-rule win over the Gators. It was that kind of night. It has been that kind of a season.

At 24-23 overall, 10-14 in the SEC, the Gators are in imminent danger of failing to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time in Kevin O’Sullivan’s 17 years on the Florida job. It seems almost surreal for that to be a possibility considering the Gators played for the national championship a year ago. A year ago, the Gators found ways to win games they weren’t supposed to – remember the 3-run rally in the bottom of the 9th to beat Virginia in the College World Series? – but this year it seems they invent ways to lose.

The Gators didn’t invent a way to lose Saturday night although giving up 11 runs in an inning was rather novel. Given what’s been happening all season long, it was probably just a matter of time before there was a China syndrome meltdown that left Florida fans in a state of shock.

Driving home from the game, a text from a friend showed up on the screen of my car comparing what happened to the sinking of the Titanic. Almost without thinking I asked Siri to play the Harry Chapin classic, “Dance Band On the Titanic.” It seemed appropriate to hear Chapin singing “the iceberg’s on the starboard bow, won’t you dance with me?” It took awhile for the Titanic to sink after striking the iceberg. The SS Gator is listing badly and will need a miracle of water from the rock at Rephidim proportions to keep it from going down.  

The problem Saturday evening was Kevin O’Sullivan had all but run out of pitchers. He needed six to get through the first game Friday, three more for game two. So, when O’Sullivan had to pull Jac Caglianone in the sixth inning of game three on Saturday, he needed brilliance that he didn't get to keep the Gators in striking distance. Instead of brilliant, the succession of pitchers afterward was the equivalent of tossing one 55-gallon drum of gasoline after another on an already raging bonfire made from 100 railroad ties.

At the gas pump on the way to Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium today to watch the Gators finish off the Aggies to sweep their weekend softball series, a big tanker truck was replenishing the below ground storage tanks. On the side of the long, stainlesssteel vessel were red letters that read INFLAMMABLE. On the way home a similar truck at the Circle K read FLAMMABLE.

What’s the difference? One way or the other it’s going to flam, which is pretty much what happened to the Gators Saturday against Tennessee as well as the way it has been for Florida pitching this year, particularly out of the bullpen. Caglianone has consistently given the Gators quality starts but he's the only starter who has. Until the lights went on for Fisher Jameson recently, there has been little in the way of quality on a consistent basis out of the bullpen.

You can survive average or below average starting pitching if there are enough good arms in the bullpen to pick up the slack, but calls to the Florida bullpen have been like playing Russian roulette with only one empty chamber. We could nickname the Florida bullpen Gasoline Alley, but that name has been taken for about 50 years. That’s what we used to call the Atlanta Braves’ bullpen back in the 1970s. In those days you prayed Phil Niekro could go the distance because a call to the pen should have been accompanied by Jim Morrison of The Doors belting out “come on baby light my fire.”

The way the pitching has been this season for UF it’s as if the FedEx truck carrying the pitching lessons was detoured to Chiefland and then got lost on its way back to Gainesville. Of course, we could say the same thing about the defense.

Or should we say lack of.

Unequivocally, this is the least effective defensive team Kevin O’Sullivan has put on the field in his 17 years at the University of Florida. Least effective is a kind way of saying the Gators aren’t very good. This is a case when the stats do lie because the Gators rank third in the SEC and 19th nationally in fielding percentage.

Here’s how that goes. If a ball is hit and a Gator can actually get to it, there is a very good chance the ball will be caught. Emphasis on the concept of getting to the ball once it’s hit. Too often the Gator defender arrives a split second or longer after the ball has found its way into the wide open spaces.

We tend to forget how good the Gators were defensively a year ago. Colby Halter at third base and Josh Rivera at shortstop were so good that we took for granted how rare it was when a ball got through on the left side of the infield. Or just how rare it was for a ball to go through BT Riopelle’s wickets behind the plate or how much ground Wyatt Langford covered in the outfield.

Here we are a year later and Caglianone plays gold glove first base while the other seven positions in the field tend to fall under one of the following three categories: (1) Average; (2) below average; or (3) not very good at all. The left side of the infield is leaky and that’s being kind. The outfielders play deep, don’t get to a lot of balls in the gaps and outfield arms aren’t going to remind anyone of Roberto Clemente. When Tanner Garrison went down with a shoulder injury, catching became an adventure.

There is also that teensy matter of timely hitting and speed, or lack of.

Now Caglianone is not only a gold glove first baseman and Florida’s only effective starting pitcher, but he’s as dangerous at the plate as anyone in college baseball. Here’s a suggestion for you. Come out to Condron Family Ballpark Tuesday night (for South Florida) and next weekend (for Kentucky) because unless we have yet another miracle, this one of walking on the water proportions, the Gators won’t be hosting a regional and the only way to see Caglianone in a Gator uniform will be on television.

Caglianone is hitting .410 with 26 home runs and 53 RBI. He’s hit in 26 straight games while showing a willingness to go the opposite way to beat the shift. He has struck out a mere 17 times in 183 official at bats. The numbers would be much better except the people who hit in front and behind him strike out a lot. Why give Caglianone anything good to hit when it's so easy to strike out the hitters in front and behind him?

There isn’t anyone with speed who makes consistent contact at the top of the lineup. Nobody, it seems, understands how to lay down a bunt. Hit-and-run is out of the question due to not enough speed throughout the lineup and inconsistent contact to protect the runner. Basically, it’s station to station baseball.

How many times this season have the Gators had runners on second and third yet failed to score at least one run because no one put the ball in play or hit a fly ball deep enough to bring home the runner?  

Baserunning blunders cost the Gators a chance to get a sweep at Arkansas. More of those minor little difficulties that have stood in the way of Florida being a good baseball team this year.

Knowing what we know now, it’s obvious the Gators were way overrated when the season began, but how could anyone know that Brandon Neely, Cade Fisher and Ryan Slater were going to have a combined ERA of 6.95? Who could have known that the Gators could take out the Aggies at home and LSU on the road then go oh-fer a roadie to Mizzou? Who could have known the Gators would be 4-7 in games decided by one run? Who could have known that Ty Evans would be the only Gator other than Caglianone to hit better than .300 or that the five hitters O’Sullivan has tried to protect Caglianone with would strike out a combined 276 times in 47 games?

These aren’t the only problems but they are indicative of a season gone south. Now, is it possible that the Gators could heat up in these last two weekends and salvage the season? Certainly, that isn’t beyond the realm of possibility. At a bare minimum Florida has to get to 14 SEC wins prior to Hoover, difficult when taking the schedule into consideration. When Ole Miss won the 2021 NCAA title, the Rebels were 14-16 in SEC play. They got hot in Hoover and stayed hot the rest of the way. A year later the Rebels went 6-24 (25-29 overall) and didn’t make the NCAA Tournament. In 2022, Mississippi State won the NCAA title, but a season later went 9-21 in SEC play, 26-30 overall and sat home for the NCAA Tournament.

LSU, which beat the Gators to win the national championship last year, is 9-15 in SEC play this year, 31-18 overall. Whereas the Gators will close out the season with Kentucky (34-10, 17-6 SEC) and Georgia (35-12, 13-11 SEC), LSU will finish up with Alabama (29-18, 10-14 SEC) on the road and Ole Miss (25-21, 9-14 SEC) at home. Based on the schedules and the fact they are currently 13 games over .500, you would have to say LSU will make the tournament and the Gators are a longshot.

If the Gators do heat up and somehow get into the tournament, they certainly won’t host and will likely be sent to Tallahassee where Florida State is 35-10 overall, 24-3 at Dick Howser Field. Not exactly a possibility that lends itself to success.

On the way out of the stadium Saturday night, fans were grousing that O’Sullivan has done the worst coaching job of his Florida career. The proverbial buck does stop with the head coach, but there is only so much he can do. He can’t swing a bat. He can’t turn a flat slider into one that breaks. He can’t run down a ball in the outfield and make a strong throw that hits the cutoff man or keep a ground ball from finding a hole and turning into a 2-run single. But, as the head coach, he’s responsible when any or all of these things go wrong.

Realistically, there isn’t much he can do about this season, but O’Sullivan can retool his roster and if necessary his coaching staff to ensure that another disastrous season like 2024 happens anytime soon. There are players on the current roster capable of rebounding from disappointing seasons. There are injured pitchers who could come back healthy and able to contribute in a very positive way a year from now. There is a good recruiting class coming in and there is the transfer portal, which figures to be more active nationwide in 2024 than it was a year ago. There will be plenty of good players available who could use an opportunity to play on the big stage of the Southeastern Conference, easily college baseball’s best league.

Meanwhile, there are seven games remaining. As Yogi would say, “It ain’t over until it’s over.” If and when it is over, plans have to be made regarding 2025 and beyond. To that, another Yogi Berra-ism could be applied:

“If you don’t know where you’re going, you might wind up someplace else.”

Because the NCAA rules for transfers and NIL have changed so radically since a year ago, it’s entirely possible a bunch of programs will be bushwhacked in the days and weeks ahead. The transfer portal opens the day the NCAA announces its 64-team field and regional pairings, which means the countdown to chaos has already begun. To his credit, Kevin O’Sullivan has always had a clear, strong vision of where to take the Florida program and a rather good roadmap for how to get there. Never will that vision be more important than 2025 and never, due to the portal and NIL changes, will navigating the road back to success be more difficult.