Baseball Notebook: Rhodes to get first start, Tobias on tear, Alonso update, more tidbits
Thursday, March 26, 2015 | Baseball, Cross Country, Scott Carter
The Gators host Alabama for a three-game series starting tonight. (Photos by Tim Casey)
Editor's note: Thursday night's game was rained out, so the teams will play a doublheader today starting at 3 p.m. Florida will start Aaron Rhodes in Game 1, Logan Shore in Game 2.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – For the past two seasons, it's normally sophomore Logan Shore on the mound for the fifth-ranked Gators (21-5, 3-3 SEC) when they open a weekend series.
Florida coach Kevin O'Sullivan is altering the routine – with help from the schedule – tonight in the first game of a three-game series against Southeastern Conference rival Alabama.
Instead of moving Shore up a day, O'Sullivan is turning to junior right-hander Aaron Rhodes (0-0, 4.05 ERA). Rhodes has pitched 13 1/3 innings in seven relief appearances this season, surrendering eight hits, five walks and striking out 13.
Shore will stay in his normal Friday slot and Dane Dunning will start Saturday. Sophomore lefty A.J. Puk (4-2, 4.72) ERA won't start against the Crimson Tide (13-10, 3-3) after an erratic performance (2 1/3 IP, 3 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 4 BB, 6 SO) in a 5-2 loss at Ole Miss on Saturday.
“Right now, we need to maybe lean on a [upperclassman] who has been there and done that, and that's why we're turning to Rhodes,'' O'Sullivan said Wednesday afternoon. “I don't know if it's a permanent move, but right now I think it's the best thing for this team.
“We're going to run A.J. right back out there. His stuff is dynamite. We've just got to get him going, it's that simple.”
While Rhodes (photo, left) has not started this season, he started four games a season ago and earned Louisville Slugger National Player of the Week honors for his 1-hit shutout against Missouri.
Meanwhile, O'Sullivan is banking on Shore (3-2, 2.17 ERA) returning to form after back-to-back un-Shore-like outings. In his first two SEC starts of the season, Shore is 0-2 and has allowed five home runs in 9 2/3 innings.
A sophomore from Coon Rapids, Minn., Shore was 7-4 and allowed only one homer in 389 opponent plate appearances in 2014.
O'Sullivan said Shore has left some of his pitches up the last two starts and has paid the price.
“I feel very encouraged about the week he's had,'' O'Sullivan said. “He's going to be fine. It's just that he's going through a tough time and you just got to battle through it, and he will.”
*****
Senior third baseman Josh Tobias returned after missing the Ole Miss series and basically picked up right where he left off.
Tobias went 3-for-5 with a homer and three RBIs in 9-6 come-from-behind victory at Stetson on Tuesday night. Tobias' two-run homer in the eighth inning broke a 6-6 tie and gave UF a lead it never relinquished.
“That was definitely something we needed,'' UF outfielder Harrison Bader said. “It was a huge swing.”
Tobias (photo, right) has been delivering huge swings nearly all season. After coming off the bench early in the season, Tobias swung his way into a regular spot in the lineup.
Tobias is batting a team-high .391 with two home runs and 16 RBIs. A switch-hitter in high school, Tobias hit right-handed his first three seasons at UF and often found himself on the bench because of a lack of production.
He decided to return to switch-hitting this season and has not regretted it. Tobias is hitting .333 right-handed and .436 left-handed. Tobias' .391 cumulative average is 122 points above his career average (.269) entering this season.
“I've never seen this in my career before, a guy hit one way for three years and all of a sudden as a senior come back and swing the bat from the other,'' O'Sullivan said. “You are not going to see this very often.”
Tobias has always been excellent defensively, which kept him in the lineup at times his first three seasons. Nothing has changed. Tobias has not committed an error this season.
*****
The Gators are 16-0 when they score first, 5-5 when they don't.
In last weekend's series at Ole Miss, the Gators fell behind in the first inning in each of the first two games of the series. They lost both.
O'Sullivan wants his team come out with a sense of urgency against Alabama.
“Three of the five losses we've had, we fell behind in the first,'' O'Sullivan said. “We haven't really shown a whole lot of fight.”
Sophomore outfielder Buddy Reed understands the importance of fast starts, especially in conference play.
“Ole Miss was a tough place. We didn't obviously play our best baseball,'' Reed said. “We had great hitting at the end of [Tuesday's game at Stetson]. That is definitely a big confidence booster going into this weekend.”
*****
The Gators have won 21 of 26 games without sophomore first baseman Pete Alonso, who has not played due to a broken foot.
Still, they would like to have him back as soon as possible. O'Sullivan is confident the time is near.
“He's been doing a lot of baseball activities with his [protective] boot on,” O'Sullivan said. “I think we probably need some time to get him acclimated without the boot on.”
The next step in Alonso's recovery is for X-rays scheduled Friday to come back clean.
*****
O'Sullivan said he kept right-hander Alex Faedo on strict pitch count Tuesday at Stetson to ensure he could be available for this weekend's series. Faedo allowed only two hits and one run in five innings against the Hatters, throwing 60 pitches … The Gators were just one of four SEC teams to win their Tuesday midweek games. The SEC was 4-10 on Tuesday, with Florida, LSU, Vanderbilt and Texas A&M victorious; Alabama lost to South Alabama 3-0 … Freshman lefty Logan Browning earned his first UF career win Tuesday. Logan's father, Tom Browning, won 123 games in his big-league career from 1984-95 … This is the first time Alabama has visited McKethan Stadium since 2011, when Florida swept a three-game series … Reed enters the Alabama series with a 13-game hitting streak. The school record belongs to Tim Olson, who had a 29-game hitting streak during the 2000 season.
