Florida Gators

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Sporting a 16-game winning streak, No. 1 Florida faces Kentucky in an Easter Weekend series starting Friday night at Cliff Hagan Stadium. The Gators (22-1/3-0 SEC) swept Missouri to open league action, while the Wildcats (15-5/2-1 SEC) went on the road and captured two of the three matchups with Georgia. UK has taken three straight series from the Orange and Blue, all by 2-1 margins.
 
Junior right-hander Logan Shore (4-0, 2.23) will face Wildcat junior right-hander Zack Brown (1-3, 5.14) in Friday's opener at 6:30 p.m., junior left-hander A.J. Puk (1-1, 1.88) will oppose Kentucky senior right-hander Dustin Beggs (5-0, 1.77) in game two of the series on Saturday at 2 p.m. and Gator sophomore right-hander Alex Faedo (5-0, 2.61) will meet senior right-hander Kyle Cody (2-1, 6.95) in Sunday's finale at 1 p.m. 
 
All three games of the weekend series can be heard through FloridaGators.com and on the Gator IMG Sports Network with Jeff Cardozo and Steve Russell and the entire series will be streamed on SEC Network+ through the Watch ESPN app with Doug Flynn and Dick Gabriel. Live stats for each game will be available on FloridaGators.com and fans can also follow updates of each game on @GatorsBB, the official Twitter account of the Gator baseball team.
 
QUICK HITS ABOUT THE GATORS

• Florida is off to its best start in school history with a 22-1 (.957) record. The 2011 squad opened the campaign at 20-3 (.870) and the 2012 team started 21-2 (.913), with each advancing to the NCAA College World Series.
• The Gators' 16-game winning streak is the second-longest in school history, two shy of an 18-game run during the 2012 campaign. That streak ended with a 9-3 setback in the first game of the set at No. 6 South Carolina. The Gators bounced back to take the next two contests to win the series.
• Kentucky is the only SEC East team that Florida does not have a winning record against during Kevin O'Sullivan's tenure, as the clubs have split 26 meetings.
• The Orange and Blue is 17-0 at home and has matched the school-record 24-game winning streak at McKethan Stadium since dropping the opener of a series with Auburn last May. The Gators also won 24 home games in a row from April 24, 2010-March 8, 2011.
• The Gator pitching staff registered 44 strikeouts over 28 innings of work against Missouri, a record for a weekend series in the nine years of O'Sullivan's tutelage.
• Florida's trio of starting pitchers, junior RHP Logan Shore (4-0, 2.23), junior LHP A.J. Puk (1-1, 1.88) and sophomore RHP Alex Faedo (5-0, 2.61), combined for 30 strikeouts and two walks in 18 innings versus the Tigers.
• Shore will be making his fourth career start against Kentucky and is 1-2 with a 3.15 ERA in 20 innings, with 18 hits, 15 strikeouts and five walks.
• The Gators are hitting .301 (9th in SEC), have a team earned run average of 2.44 (4th in SEC) and a fielding percentage of .983 (1st in SEC).
• O'Sullivan's squad is 5-0 in one-run games and 4-1 in two-run games this season.
• Sophomore catcher Mike Rivera (.292, 24 RBI) led the offense in the first league series by going 5-for-9 (.556) with five RBI, while junior center fielder Buddy Reed (293, 19 runs, 13 walks) was 5-for-11 (.455) and freshman third baseman Jonathan India (.308, 13 runs, 8 RBI) was 4-for-11 (.364) in the SEC debut.
• Junior RHP Shaun Anderson (3-0, 1.15) was called upon in all three games and responded with a win in Friday's opener and a pair of saves. Over 3.1 innings, the righty totaled six strikeouts and permitted one hit. On the season, Anderson has 21 strikeouts and zero walks in 15.2 innings spanning 11 appearances.
• Junior LHP Kirby Snead has a team-low ERA of 0.61 in a team-high 13 appearances, with one earned run surrendered in 14.2 innings.
• Florida has scored in the first inning in 11 of 23 games (11-0) and is 15-0 when scoring first.

 
SERIES NUGGETS
Florida holds a 135-64-1 (.678) advantage in the all-time series, including a 57-34-1 (.625) edge in Lexington. Head coach Kevin O'Sullivan is 13-13 (.500) against Kentucky, 6-6 (.500) in Gainesville, 6-6 (.500) in Lexington and 1-1 (.500) at the SEC Tournament.
 
The Gators have captured 10 of their last 15 series against the Wildcats, including three-game sweeps in 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005, but Kentucky has taken the last three regular-season series by 2-1 margins.
 
Florida has notched 2-1 series triumphs in four of the last seven seasons (W, L, W in 2009; W, W, L in 2010; W, L, W in 2011; W, W, L in 2012), with Kentucky emerging victorious in Gainesville in 2013 (UF 4-1, UK 11-5, UK 6-2), in Lexington in 2014 (UK 17-1, UF 11-10, UK 9-8) and in Gainesville last April (UK 3-0, UK 7-6, UF 10-1).
 
2015 SERIES RECAP
Kentucky claimed the first two games at McKethan Stadium, 3-0 and 7-6, to secure the series win. The Gators avoided the sweep with a 10-1 triumph on Sunday. UF has not dropped all three games at home to a league opponent since the 2006 season (Georgia).
 
Right-hander Alex Faedo yielded one run over 5.1 innings and a balanced offense with 16 hits helped Florida salvage Sunday's finale, 10-1. Harrison Bader (3-for-5), Dalton Guthrie (3-for-4) and Mike Rivera (2-for-3) each drove in multiple runs for the Gators.
 
Kentucky used a four-run second inning and threw out the potential tying run at the plate to end the game in a series-clinching 7-6 victory on Saturday night. Trailing 7-2 entering the final frame, the Gators used five hits and four runs to close within a run but could not push across the equalizer. Josh Tobias led off with a single into right field and scored on a one-out double into right center field by Peter Alonso (2-for-3). With two down, Rivera singled into left field and Ryan Larson drew a walk to fill the sacks. Logan Salow yielded a two-run, pinch-hit single up the middle to Jeremy Vasquez for a 7-5 deficit. Buddy Reed (2-for-5) followed with a base-knock into left field that brought home Larson and a throwing error on the play enabled the Gators to have runners on second and third. Richie Martin tried to plate pinch runner Taylor Lane with a squeeze bunt but Salow fielded the bunt and was able to throw out Lane at the plate to complete the contest.
 
A quartet of pitchers combined on a five-hitter as the Wildcats claimed the series opener, 3-0, on Friday night. It marked the first time last season that the Gators had been shut out.
 
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