Ongoing UF Baseball Commentary

Been out of town all week with my wife. Saw the 1st Georgia loss on ESPN2, caught the stats on last night's 6-1 loss and heard the first 5 innings on the drive home. Looked like we might win today until Abner's walks and then Nesbitt's disaster in the bottom of the 7th. Now Riopelle gets it back to 11-8, but doubt we can hold on even if we get to 12. Just a disaster from the bullpen.

 

Got rolled today 14-8. Swept by Georgia with Arkansas, Vandy & Tennessee up next in the SEC schedule. Not looking good for the Orange & Blue.

 

UF baseball drops to 18-10, 3-6 in the SEC, losing 5 of their last 6 conference games, getting pounded by Georgia today 14-8. Even more humiliating is that former Gator castoff Nolan Crisp was the Bulldogs's starting pitcher today and shut the Gators out for 4 innings before getting roughed up a little and relieved in the 5th. Florida came back from a 2-1 deficit to take a 6-2 lead in the 5th, only to have the bullpen fall apart and surrender 8 in the 7th and 3 more in the 8th to seal the loss. Brandon Neely was stellar in relief, coming in for starter Garrett Milchin with no out and 2 on in the 1st and getting out of that mess, and then throwing 4 more solid innings, giving up on 1 run. Phillip Abner pitched a good 6th, but was relieved by Tyler Nesbitt after walking the first 2 batters in the 7th. Nesbitt then gave up 6 hits, including 2 HR's, and 6 runs before retiring the side. Karl Hartman gave up 3 more runs in the 8th to complete the humiliation.

Thursday night the Gators came from a deficit to tie the game and then take a 6-4 lead in the top of the 9th on a 2-run HR from Jud Fabian, only to have the bullpen give up 3 runs in the bottom of the inning for a 7-6 walk-off for Georgia. Ryan Slater and Blake Purnell were the pitchers who blew that game. And Friday night, Brandon Sproat threw an excellent 5 innings, before finally tiring and giving up 3 runs in the 6th, as the bats just couldn't get any clutch hits. Nic Ficarrotta gave up 3 more runs in 1/3 of an inning in the bottom of the 8th to seal a 6-1 loss for the Gators. Just a horrible exhibition by the team as a whole, as they wasted some good individual efforts on the weekend. What are the answers, as the season seems to be slipping away, especially with Arkansas, Tennessee and Vanderbilt being our opponents over the next 3 weekends?

 

What a turn around for Tennessee, huh? 26-1, 8-0 in the SEC right now. Their coach has done a great job since he was hired in 2018. CWS last year and getting better every year.