Florida Gators

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – No. 2 Florida (30-5) visits Arkansas (21-12) for a Thursday-Saturday series at Baum Stadium. The Gators are 8-4 (.667) in league play, two games behind No. 5 South Carolina (28-5/10-2 SEC), while the Razorbacks are 4-8 (.333) and four games back of No. 8 Mississippi State (23-9-1/8-4 SEC) in the West.
 
Junior left-hander A.J. Puk (1-2, 3.38) will face Hog junior right-hander Dominic Taccolini (3-1, 5.31) in Thursday's opener at 9 p.m., junior right-hander Logan Shore (6-0, 2.66) will oppose Arkansas sophomore right-hander Keaton McKinney (1-1, 6.25) in game two of the series on Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Gator sophomore right-hander Alex Faedo (6-1, 3.97) will meet a pitcher to be announced in Saturday's finale at 3 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. The series opener will carried on ESPNU with Clay Matvick and Kyle Peterson, Friday's game will be streamed on SEC Network+ and Saturday's contest will also be shown on SEC Network+. 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 No. 2 in the USA Today Coaches' Poll and is No. 1 in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) according to the NCAA.
• The Gators have split their four SEC series in alternating fashion. UF swept Missouri at home, dropped two out of three games at Kentucky (W, L, L), swept No. 1 Texas A&M at home and fell twice to No. 10 Mississippi State at home (W, L, L).
• The trip to Fayetteville marks the halfway point of the league's 10 series. Kevin O'Sullivan's club is 6-3 (.667) in road games and 2-0 (1.000) at neutral sites.
• After facing the Hogs, the Orange and Blue hosts Georgia, travels to No. 5 South Carolina and Tennessee on consecutive weekends, wraps up its home schedule against No. 4 Vanderbilt and concludes the regular season at No. 12 LSU.
• Junior left-hander A.J. Puk will start Thursday night's opener, his first action since April 3 against top-ranked Texas A&M (1.0 IP, 2 K).
• Friday night's starter, junior righty Logan Shore, has captured his last 11 decisions dating back to a loss in last season's opener versus Auburn on May 14. He is seeking to tie the school record held by Russ Kibler during the 1984 season.
• The Gators have not played a series at Baum Stadium since the 2011 season, when Arkansas claimed two of three matchups by scores of 4-3, 5-3 and 3-5.
• In five career games against Arkansas, junior outfielder Buddy Reed (.303, 27 runs, 20 RBI, 16 stolen bases) is 7-for-16 (.438).
• Entering the weekend, sophomore outfielder Jeremy Vasquez (.321, 17 runs, 12 RBI) boasts a career-high nine-game hitting streak in which he is 14-for-30 (.467).
• The trio of Dalton Guthrie, JJ Schwarz and Peter Alonso powered No. 2 Florida to an 8-2 win over No. 6 Florida State on Tuesday night at Dick Howser Stadium. The Gators completed a sweep of the Sunshine Showdown with their 10th victory over the Seminoles in the last 12 meetings.
• The five straight triumphs in the series match Florida's longest stretch against FSU and O'Sullivan has now guided UF to season sweeps in 2012, 2014 and 2016 during the annual series played in Gainesville, Jacksonville and Tallahassee.
• Guthrie went 3-for-5 out of the leadoff spot and drove in two runs, Schwarz was 3-for-4 with three RBI, two runs and a solo homer and Alonso was 3-for-5 as part of the Gators' 12-hit attack.
• Freshman right-hander Jackson Kowar (3-0, 3.41) registered seven strikeouts over four innings, while junior right-hander Frank Rubio (2-0, 5.59) collected his second win of the campaign.
• Junior left-hander Kirby Snead (3-0, 0.72) made his team-leading 21st appearance and junior right-hander Shaun Anderson (3-0, 1.14) has a team-high six saves and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 35 to 1.
• Over the three games versus the Seminoles, Florida held a 17-4 scoring advantage and its pitching staff compiled a 1.00 earned run average, with 30 strikeouts in 27 innings.

 
SERIES NUGGETS
Florida and Arkansas have met 55 times on the diamond, with the Hogs holding a slight 28-27 (.509) edge over the Gators. Head coach Kevin O'Sullivan is 9-14 (.391) against Arkansas, 6-6 (.500) in Gainesville, 1-5 (.167) in Fayetteville and 2-3 (.400) at the SEC Tournament. The Hogs are the only school in the SEC West that O'Sullivan has a losing record against and one of two schools in the league to have the upper hand on the Gators during his tenure (Kentucky has a 15-14 edge).
 
LAST MEETING BETWEEN THE GATORS & RAZORBACKS
Left-hander A.J. Puk fired a three-hit shutout with 11 strikeouts as fourth-seeded Florida advanced to the semifinals of the 2015 SEC Tournament by eliminating fifth-seeded Arkansas, 10-0, on May 22 at the Hoover Met. The game was halted in the seventh inning due to the mercy rule.
 
Puk continued a strong stretch of recent performances by reaching double-digits in strikeouts for the third time in his last four outings. The southpaw yielded three singles and he was one shy of his career-best total of a dozen strikeouts set on May 8 at Vanderbilt.  In tossing his first career shutout, Puk was supported by a balanced Gator offense that banged out 11 hits from seven of its nine starters and had seven different players drive in a run. Buddy Reed was 3-for-3, Dalton Guthrie was 2-for-4 and scored twice, while JJ Schwarz was 2-for-3 with a couple of runs and an RBI.
 
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