Wins Pile Up as Gators Do It All

The Gators celebrate their 12th win in 13 games on Sunday. (Photo: Tim Casey/UAA Communications)

Wins Pile Up as Gators Do It All

Monday, March 5, 2018 | Baseball

The No. 1-ranked Gators are off to a 12-1 and are playing well in all three phases of the game.

By: Ethan Hughes, FloridaGators.com correspondent

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – In 2017, the Florida Gators rode a well-defined formula – dominant starting pitching, stellar defensive play, timely hitting and a shutdown closer – to the program's first national championship.

However, the offense was inconsistent and the bridge between the Gators' starting pitchers and closer Michael Byrne was almost nonexistent, leaving the Gators with a razor-thin margin for error.

The Gators have been a more balanced team through the first three weeks of the 2018 season.

In their sweep of the Stony Brook Seawolves over the weekend, the Gators (12-1) demonstrated their ability to win in different ways. Junior starting pitchers Brady Singer and Jackson Kowar did not have their best stuff in the first two games.

Singer gave up back-to-back home runs to the eighth and ninth hitters on Friday, and the Seawolves led 5-3. On Saturday, Kowar walked four batters and hit another in 6 1/3 scoreless innings.

Last season, that could have been a recipe for failure. Instead, the Gators scored 20 runs and pounded out 28 hits in the first two games, including five home runs. Just how good were things going for the Gators at the plate?

Sophomore Kirby McMullen, used primarily as a pitcher last season, narrowly missed his first career home run on Saturday when he hit a line drive off the top of the left-field wall. The headliner in the first two games was sophomore outfielder Wil Dalton, a junior college transfer, who had a career night on Friday, going 4-for-5 with three home runs and six RBI.

Then on Sunday, the old formula returned. Sophomore right-hander Tyler Dyson pitched a career-long seven-inning gem, the offense tied the game on a timely single by sophomore Austin Langworthy and took the lead on a two-run error and junior Byrne closed the door on a 3-1 pitchers' duel.

"It's baseball," UF head coach Kevin O'Sullivan said after Sunday's win. "Not every game's going to be scripted the same way, and you've got to find different ways to win. That's what good teams do. When you feel like the games are going the way [it went] today and it was hard to score runs, that's when you saw us attempt a few more drags, put a hit-and-run on."

Dyson said the Gators' resiliency and consistency allows them to win different types of games.

"We're built [to win in different ways]," Dyson said. "We've got a lot of guys back there that if they're 0-for-3, their fourth at bat they're going to come up big for us. If they have a bad play in the field, they're going to come up clutch for us later in the game."

Dyson also said the team's balance allows him to relax a bit and not have to try to win the game by himself.

"You want to be perfect every time, but rarely [are you] going to have all three pitches and your location every time you go out there, so [I'm] just doing what I can to try to get outs and the offense will pick me up," he said.

Freshman Brady Smith had a breakout series against the Seawolves.

Prior to the series, Smith was hitting .136. After going 4-7 against the Seawolves, his average is now at .241.

Smith said the adjustment to the college game overwhelmed him at first but believes he is starting to turn a corner.

"My first couple games, they were just a lot quicker, and I just had to stay relaxed as a player," Smith said. "The team just helped me out and kept me going and kept me relaxed.

"When I first started getting in there, I had the freshman jitters, and I was trying to do too much because it was my first couple innings in there. Now that I'm relaxed, everything's coming together."

Smith agrees with Dyson's assessment that the Gators' bounce-back ability is key to the team's success.

"Our team, we come together, and even if we have a bad inning, the next inning we come out and just stay strong and stay focused," he said. "You have defense and offense. Some innings don't go as well. You've got to play two sides to this game."

For the season, the Gators are batting .310 as a team with 19 home runs and averaging 7.6 runs per game. Individually, five of the Gators' regulars are batting at least .300 and all but one (sophomore Austin Langworthy) has left the yard. As a comparison, through 12 games last season, the Gators were batting .261 with just eight home runs and were averaging 5.25 runs per game.

O'Sullivan says he thinks the Gators' offensive improvement is simply a product of being healthy.

"Last year, some of our inconsistencies offensively [were] because of injuries," he said. "We had a lot of guys go down. We had a hard time finding some rhythm in our offense, but once we got everybody healthy, I think through the year our offense improved a lot."

Middle relief pitching has emerged in the form of freshmen such as Jordan Butler, Jack Leftwich, Tommy Mace and Hunter McMullen.

"The freshmen that have pitched on the mound have been a little bit ahead of where I expected them to be and helped us bridge the gap with [Byrne]," O'Sullivan said.

Don't get it wrong: the hallmarks of an O'Sullivan-coached team are still present. Singer and Kowar are projected by many as first round MLB Draft selections, Byrne eagerly awaits opportunities to extinguish opponents' hopes of late rallies and the Gators are fielding .979.

The difference is the Gators now have an offense capable of winning shootouts, if needed, to complement the pitching and defense for the first time in several seasons.

"I think we're doing all three phases of the game pretty well," O'Sullivan said. "We're getting really good starting pitching. We're playing great defense. We didn't walk anybody again today, and that's been our recipe for success."

Yes, it's possible the Gators might be more versatile and balanced this year.

As if they weren't difficult enough to beat already.