Florida Baseball Swept By Alabama, 14-7
Florida fans, look away. Or, better yet, change the channel to Gators basketball and drown your sorrows in March Madness.
No. 18 Florida’s final game at Sewell-Thomas Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Ala., continued the team’s predictable bad spiral with a Crimson Tide (18–7, 3-3 SEC) series sweep Sunday.
The 14-7 loss can’t be surprising anymore. The Gators (19-6, 3-3) looked lost in the box for the second SEC series in a row. While the starting pitchers have lasted longer in games, the bullpen has fallen apart. Alabama’s batters bullied the even reliable Ernesto Lugo-Canchola or Joshua Whritenour on the mound.
Simply put: this team can’t win. Not when shortstop Brendan Lawson is out with back spasms (and, not consistently, even when he’s playing).
In the past, Florida’s lineup featured future big league stars who shouldered the brunt of the at-bats: Jac Caglianone, Wyatt Langford and Pete Alonso. You name them. This team certainly didn’t show any major league at-bats today. This lineup collectively hit .182, knocking through six hits and taking eight walks. Right fielder Cash Strayer, who joined the game after Ashton Wilson exited the first inning with a hand injury, led the team with a measly two hits.
The scoring approach turned ugly quickly. Take the first inning: Five of the seven runners who reached a base did so with a walk or a hit-by-pitch. Florida only hit the ball once, designated hitter Karson Bowen’s single to right field.
And sure, left fielder Blake Cyr’s two-run homer in the seventh kept the game competitive. But other than those brief flashes, Florida batters couldn’t build momentum. They swung at pitches far beneath the strike zone and went 0-for-3 with the bases loaded.
“I thought our energy was pretty darn good until they tied the game,” UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “And then all of a sudden, it took all of the air out of the dugout.”
Despite this, it might have been enough to win on a normal Sunday afternoon in Gainesville. Today, though, Alabama pushed across 12 runs in just the sixth and seventh innings.
Spare the obvious — that baseball is a game of scoring more than your opponent — it cannot be the fault of Florida batters solely for the hellish weekend. The bullpen needs fixing, now. Lugo-Canchola and Whritenour were going to falter at some point after holding down the fort for nearly every save opportunity handed to them.
It certainly wasn’t pretty the way the two collapsed: seven earned runs, five hits and two walks.
But none of the other bullpen arms could reorient the team before it was too late. Not Russell Sandefer (L, 0-1), who faced four runners and gave up almost an equal amount of earned runs, with three. Not Luke McNeillie, who gave up three earned runs and two walks. And certainly not, Jackson Hoyt — though he got force outs on all three batters he faced.
“Everything was set up perfectly,” O’Sullivan said. “Obviously, it was uncharacteristic of Ernie, the way he threw today. But he’s been great for us the entire year. It’s the guys that came in after him … it just was not good, not good at all.”
There’s no easy way out of the hole Florida dug itself into. The at-bats look sloppy. The pitching needs retooling. The defense is mediocre on a good day. So, the Gators’ only hope, Lawson, needs to get better soon. Postseason hopes rely squarely on his presence.
Up Next
The Sunshine State Series continues with Game 2 at 6 p.m. Tuesday (SEC Network+) at VyStar Ballpark in Jacksonville where the Gators take on No. 11 Florida State (19-4). UF beat FSU 6-3 in Gainesville on March 10. Game 3 is schedule for April 7 in Tallahassee.
Category: Baseball, College Baseball, Gator Sports, Gators Baseball
