Florida Gators

 
BATON ROUGE, La. – In a back-and-forth game on Friday night, LSU scraped a run across in the bottom of the eighth and held on to win 5-4 at Alex Box Stadium. LSU (38-16, 18-10 SEC) took advantage of some uncharacteristic errors by the Florida (43-10, 18-9 SEC) defense and an illness from starter A.J. Puk to claim the victory.
 
Puk exited the game in the third inning with a stomach illness and Florida was forced to use six pitchers in the contest. Despite three errors and the high number of pitching changes, the Gators battled and were tied in the eighth inning before Kramer Robertson blooped a single to left to bring home the winning run.
 
The Gators got on the board first with a pair of hits in the second inning. Jeremy Vasquez singled to right with two outs, then Dalton Guthrie laid down a perfect bunt for an infield single. The throw on Guthrie's bunt got away from the first baseman and allowed Vasquez to come all the way around to score from first.
 
In the bottom of the third inning LSU took advantage of a leadoff walk to tie the game. Starter A.J. Puk walked LSU's Cole Freeman to start the inning and then was forced to exit with what appeared to be an illness. Dane Dunning entered after an abbreviated warmup and surrendered a pair of singles that allowed the Tigers to tie the game. Dunning escaped the jam with the game tied 1-1.
 
The Tigers took a lead in the fifth behind a pair of singles. Antoine Duplantis led off with a single and moved to second on Jake Fraley's single. A fielder's choice put runners on the corners with one out and Jordan Romero hit a RBI grounder to give LSU a 2-1 lead.
 
Florida responded immediately, as Mike Rivera launched his ninth home run of the season to tie the game at two. The lead didn't last long, however, as LSU had a pair of two-out hits to plate a run. Greg Deichmann singled to right with two down, then Cole Freeman doubled into the left field corner to score Deichmann for a 3-2 lead. Freeman advanced to third on an overthrown ball to the plate.
 
After the double, the Gators went to the bullpen and brought in left-hander Kirby Snead to face the left-handed leadoff man Duplantis. LSU added to its lead when Duplantis beat out an infield single and Freeman came in to score to give the Tigers a 4-2 lead.
 
UF battled back again in the seventh with a pair of hits. Jonathan India singled to right field then Buddy Reed drew a two-out walk. Both runners advanced on a wild pitch and Nelson Maldonado's RBI single to right brought them home to tie the game at four.
 
LSU jumped back in front in the eighth. Freeman reached base via an error, the Gators third of the night, and Duplantis singled to give the Tigers a pair of runners. Robertson's two-out single to left field scored Freeman from second for a 5-4 lead.
 

Postgame Quotes

Head Coach Kevin O'Sullivan
On Friday's game:
"It has everything to do with the beginning of the game. We had opportunities in the first inning and didn't end up scoring. We did a lot of things wrong tonight. We missed the cutoff in the outfield a couple times and backed up home plate poorly to let guys advance another base. We needed to hang on to that ball there at first base in the eighth inning. We had some questionable at bats along the way. It really doesn't come down to Shaun [Anderson]'s inning there in the end. I thought [Nick] Horvath did fine. I thought [Frank] Rubio did fine. The 0-2 pitch with two outs hurt us. There were a lot of things that went into it tonight, it wasn't just the end. I thought Shaun battled and made some big pitches. The ball at the end wasn't hit hard, it was just hit in the right spot."
 
"At the end of the day we needed to make a couple better two-strike pitches. The one that hurt us was the 0-2 pitch. If we locate that pitch down we're probably going to be able to get out of the inning. Unfortunately we weren't able to do that."
 
On tying the game twice late:
"We battled, we just made to many mistakes. You're on the road, first game of the series – actually second game – the first inning is the one that hurt. Then we had the bases loaded with a 2-0 count and we really didn't take that aggressive of a swing and grounded to second. I think that at bat, and the first inning not getting the runner in from third, it hurt. I knew if we didn't have some really good innings there right after that it would be tough. That's what happened, we were never able to pull away."

Postgame Notes

• Dalton Guthrie picked up three hits on the night, recording his team leading 24th multi-hit game of the season.
• Guthrie and Jonathan India increased their hitting streaks to three games.
• Nelson Maldonado had a pair of RBI and now has eight games with multiple RBI on the season.
• The Gators led the nation with a .986 fielding percentage with just 28 errors on the season. They had a season high three errors on Friday night.

Up Next

On Saturday at 12 p.m., Florida will complete its postponed game from Thursday night against the Tigers (stopped in the bottom of the third inning). The two teams will then play a shortened third game (seven innings) starting at 4:30 p.m. on ESPNU. Jeff Cardozo and Steve Russell will have the call for both contests on the Gator IMG Sports Network.

Follow the Gators

FloridaGators.com
Twitter
Instagram
Facebook