AUBURN, Ala.—Florida's bats struggled once again and the pitching fell apart on Friday night as the Gators lost a lopsided 14-3 game at Auburn in the Southeastern Conference opener for both teams.
 
After being tied 1-1 through the first three innings, Auburn took a 3-1 lead on a two-run homer in the fourth inning then blew the game open with eight runs in the fifth.
 
Gators' starting pitcher Alex Faedo suffered his first loss of the season after allowing six runs on four hits with a career high six walks.
 
Florida opened the scoring in the second inning. Keenan Bell reached second base after Auburn left fielder Jay Estes dropped a fly ball at the warning track, setting the Gators up in scoring position. Two batters later, Christin Hicks' RBI single gave UF a 1-0 lead.
 
Auburn responded right away, taking advantage of a one-out walk from Dylan Ingram. After a grounder moved the runner to second, Estes redeemed his fielding mistake with a two-out double to left field to tie the game.
 
The Tigers threatened again in the third after a pair of walks from Faedo loaded the bases with two outs, but a fly ball to center field end the threat.
 
Auburn struck again in the fourth. After Faedo's fifth walk of the night, Tigers' second baseman Will Holland launched a two-run homer to left field for a 3-1 lead.
 
The game was blown open in the fifth, when Auburn scored eight runs on five hits, taking advantage of a pair of hit batters and two walks in the inning.
 
Faedo's night ended after 4.1 innings, his shortest outing of the season. Kirby McMullen relieved Faedo but did not fare any better, allowing three runs in 0.1 innings.
 
Jonathan India hit his team-leading third home run of the season in the sixth.
 
Auburn added two more runs in the sixth and another in the seventh. Florida scored one in the ninth for the final 14-3 margin.
 
Florida and Auburn will resume the series on Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m. ET at Plainsman Park. The game will air live on SEC Network+ and on the Gators IMG Sports Network.
 
 
POSTGAME QUOTES
Head Coach Kevin O'Sullivan
"It was one of those games where it just fell apart in one inning, gave up an eight-spot. Alex was obviously not on his game tonight, one of those rare starts that he has. His command wasn't there, they ran his pitch count up, did a good job with two strikes. The first batter of the game had an 11-12 pitch at bat. Could never really get on track on the mound and then made some bad routes in the outfield, had a double play ball hit to second base that we didn't turn. Offensively we weren't able to do much against a really good pitcher. The positive is it's one loss and we still have a chance to win the series. As soon as we get home we'll watch the tape and figure some things out. I know some things we need to do different pitching-wise. We've got to find some consistency in the lineup. It's that simple. We went with an extra left-handed hitter tonight, I think the splits on their starter, lefties were hitting .303 I believe and righties were hitting .097 on the year. We tried to get another left-handed bat in there. Credit him, he threw the ball very, very well. Coming in I knew this was going to be a tough one, it was going to be a low scoring game if we were going to have a chance. Obviously he pitched great."
 
On coming back tomorrow for game two:
"Well, 14-3 or 3-2, it really doesn't matter. A loss is a loss. They all hurt the same and they're all disappointing. The thing that was most disappointing, we haven't played well on the road. I don't think we've won a game on the road yet. We're going to have to get over that and be able to play better. When you're struggling offensively you need to be able to pitch really good, and obviously we weren't able to do either tonight, and we played some shaky defense at times. We're just going to have to put it behind us and come back out tomorrow. We've got Brady going, I think he's a good matchup for them. We've just got to continue to work, a lot of our guys are getting pitched the same way over and over. At some point they're going to have to make adjustments, and they're not difficult ones. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. We're just going to have to help them out. Some guys are getting breaking balls to death and still trying to pull the ball. Left-handed hitters are getting changeups an awful lot and they're not staying back, they're not moving up in the box. Some of our guys are not choking up enough with two strikes. These things are going to get cleaned up."