Baseball Tangles With No. 13 Vandy In Final Series
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 | Baseball
With just one of the eight berths to next week's SEC Tournament secured, Eastern Division rivals Florida (30-20/14-13) and Vanderbilt (37-15/15-11) will collide in a three-game series at McKethan Stadium starting on Thursday. The Commodores are in third place, while the Gators are locked into a four-way tie for fourth with Alabama, Kentucky and Ole Miss. Arkansas (13-13) currently sits in eighth, while South Carolina (13-14) is in the ninth position.
Besides the set in Gainesville, the other league matchups feature Alabama at Georgia, Arkansas at Mississippi State, LSU at Auburn, Ole Miss at Kentucky and Tennessee at South Carolina. UGA clinched the league's regular-season crown last Sunday and is the only squad to have punched its ticket to Regions Park in Hoover, Ala.
Sophomore right-hander Billy Bullock (Balm, Fla.) (4-3, 4.11) will start the opener against VU left-hander Mike Minor (5-3, 4.07). Bullock worked seven innings last Friday night at Alabama but was not involved in the decision after allowing seven hits and four runs (three earned) in seven innings. He is 3-1 with a 4.34 ERA in nine SEC appearances, with eight starts.
Coming off a complete-game masterpiece that evened the series against the Crimson Tide, junior lefty Stephen Locke (Tampa, Fla.) (4-2, 2.99) will start Friday at 6:30 p.m. against Commodore righty Caleb Cotham (7-3, 3.28). Locke scattered seven hits and permitted one earned run in a 96-pitch effort as the Gators posted a 6-2 triumph.
Florida will send junior RHP Patrick Keating (Harrisburg, Ill.) (8-0, 3.27) to the hill in Saturday's regular-season finale versus Vanderbilt RHP Nick Christiani (5-3, 4.37). The contest will air live on Sun Sports. Keating has received no-decisions in his last two outings at South Carolina (4.0 IP, 7 H, 5 R) and at Alabama (7.1 IP, 7 H, 4 R).
UF head coach Kevin O'Sullivan and Vandy skipper Tim Corbin served together on Jack Leggett's staff at Clemson. Corbin was with the Tigers between 1994 and 2002, while O'Sullivan was at Clemson from 1999-2007.
After managing just a 17-17 showing at McKethan Stadium last year, Florida is 24-6 (.800) in 2008. It is the highest winning percentage since the 2003 club went 31-6 (.839). The Orange and Blue sports an 8-1 series mark at home, dropping two of three to Arkansas over April 11-13 for its lone blemish after triumphs over Siena (3-0), Eastern Michigan (2-0), Campbell (2-0), Brown (2-1), Auburn (3-0), LSU (2-1), North Florida (2-1) and No. 5 Georgia (2-1). UF was 7-8 (.467) against SEC foes in Gainesville last season and claimed two of its five league series by defeating Kentucky and Alabama.
The Gators' starting pitchers are 13-4 with a 3.52 earned run average through 27 SEC games. In eight league starts, Bullock is 2-1 with a 4.44 ERA, Locke (2-0, 2.17) has fired complete games against Georgia and Alabama in his four starts and Keating is a perfect 7-0 with a 3.44 ERA in nine starts.
UF's next theft will be its 100th of the campaign, as the squad is 99-for-119 on the basepaths. Junior Avery Barnes (High Springs, Fla.) (25-for-28) leads the SEC and is hoping to become the first Florida player to pace the league in steals since Rory Alonzo in 1984. Barnes leads the Gators with a .383 clip and has scored 60 runs. Sophomore Matt den Dekker (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.) is 17-for-17 on stolen-base opportunities and has a .315 average, sophomore Cole Figueroa (Tallahassee, Fla.) (.333, 49 RBI, 12 2B) is 17-for-21 and freshman Josh Adams (Jacksonville, Fla.) (.339, 47 RBI, 17 2B) is 11-for-14.
In the most recent NCAA statistics released on Tuesday, Florida is first in the nation with 63 double plays. The Gators were third with 1.26 turned per game, behind Notre Dame (1.29) and Pepperdine (1.28). Although UF did not turn any double plays on Tuesday night, it is right outside the top five on the program's single-season list (65, 1987).
All nine starters contributed at least one hit as part of a 17-run barrage as the Gators cruised past USF, 12-2, on Tuesday night. Sophomore Clayton Pisani (Naples, Fla.) (2-for-4) set a career high with four RBI, collected three hits and sophomore Jonathan Pigott (Ormond Beach, Fla.) cranked a two-run homer in UF's final non-conference tilt of the year. Sophomore Kyle Mullaney (Jacksonville, Fla.) (2-4) picked up his second win by working three innings after freshman Tommy Toledo (Tampa, Fla.) tossed four scoreless frames. The 10-run margin was UF's highest since 13-2 shellacking of Brown on March 9 and was the team's biggest run output since April 19, a 13-7 win over No. 17 Kentucky. The Gators totaled a season-high 30 bases against USF, with 10 singles, three doubles, two triples and two homers.
Florida was swept by top-ranked Vanderbilt in Nashville last April, enabling the Commodores to stay atop the SEC standings. Commodore All-American David Price registered 13 strikeouts and threw 7.2 innings of scoreless ball on Friday as the Commodores captured the opener, 10-1. The left-hander allowed only an eighth-inning RBI single by Figueroa (2-for-4) and was supported by an offense that produced 15 hits, including seven as part of a seven-run seventh. Mullaney scattered seven hits and was charged with three runs in his collegiate starting debut.
On Saturday, Vandy snapped a 6-6 tie with an RBI single in the sixth by Andrew Giobbi and exploded for nine runs in the seventh on its way to a 17-6 victory. VU had jumped out a 6-1 lead in the first before the Gators tied the game in the fourth...Following a shaky first inning, Bryan Augenstein (4-5) surrendered one run and four hits over the next 4.1 innings, finishing with three strikeouts and a walk...The trio of Figueroa, Pigott and Hampton Tignor (Sarasota, Fla.) chipped in with two hits apiece.
Vanderbilt completed the sweep of with a 13-5 victory on Sunday afternoon. Holding a 3-2 lead, the hosts tallied five runs in the fourth and three more in the fifth to break the game open. After missing the first two games of the series, Matt LaPorta returned to the Gator lineup and extended his hitting streak to 20 games by going 2-for-3 with two RBI and a solo homer. The blast was his SEC-leading 17th and was his 71st career round-tripper.
Six of the last seven regular-season series between Florida and Vanderbilt have resulted in sweeps. The Gators emerged victorious in 2001 (Nashville - 9-6 (10), 1-0, 9-5), 2002 (Gainesville - 13-7, 8-7, 7-3), 2004 (Gainesville - 5-3, 4-2, 3-2 (10) and 2005 (Nashville - 5-4, 2-1 (13), 6-3). The Commodores took all three games when the teams met at Charles Hawkins Field in 2003 (2-1, 4-2, 4-1) and in 2007 (10-1, 17-6, 13-5). Vandy's 2-1 series triumph at McKethan Stadium in '06 bucked the trend. Florida leads the all-time series, 113-58-1, including 65-18 on its own turf.
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