The No. 1-ranked Florida Gators christened their brand new ballpark with a win over No. 21 Miami on Friday night. It was a dominant pitching performance from UF until the ninth inning when it allowed a four-run rally. Still, Florida held on for a 7-5 win over Miami in its season opener.
Gators starting pitcher Tommy Mace, who returned to school after going unselected in the shortened 2020 draft, was excellent in his return to the mound. After a perfect first inning, he found himself in some trouble in the second. He allowed a double and walk to the first two batters, which set up a Miami run off a single from right fielder Christian Del Castillo.
But he avoided allowing any further damage to the scoreboard, and he only gave up one hit during the rest of his five-inning performance. He captured his first win of the season, striking out eight batters in the process.
The early part of the game proved to be a pitching duel, though. Hurricanes starter Daniel Federman was hard to hit off of in the early stretches. He made an early mistake in allowing a home run from Nathan Hickey in the bottom of the first, but he pitched three-up, three-down innings in the second and third. All that kept him from three-straight clean innings was a fielding error from second base in the fourth, which didn’t result in any Florida runs.
Things started to come off the rails for him in the fifth, though. He allowed singles from Josh Rivera and Kendrick Calilao to open the inning, and though he got Cory Acton out on a fly ball, Jacob Young hit an RBI single on the next at-bat. Federman couldn’t avoid further damage, giving up a double to Hickey, which brought two runs home. He was pulled after that, finishing with seven strikeouts and four earned runs allowed off seven hits in 4 2/3 innings.
Jake Garland pitched the rest of the way for Miami, and though he got out of the fifth cleanly, he gave up a triple to Rivera in the sixth. He scored off a Calilao single on the next at-bat. In the eighth, he gave up a two-run homer to Kris Armstrong, and Florida took a 7-1 lead into the ninth inning.
That’s when UF’s pitching began to wane. Christian Scott, who hadn’t given up a hit since taking over for Mace in the sixth, was pulled for freshman Chase Centala. He failed to get the close, allowing a single and two walks to open the inning before being yanked for Ben Specht.
Specht immediately allowed a two-RBI double and gave up another run on a sac-fly, cutting Florida’s lead to 7-4. After allowing another single that put runners at the corners, coach Kevin O’Sullivan made another change, this time for Franco Aleman.
Miami managed to score a run on another sacrifice on his first at-bat, but with two outs and the tying run at the plate, UM’s Anthony Vilar hit a fly ball to center field that was easily fielded by the Gators, and they held on for the win with Aleman recording the save.
Florida will be back in action on Saturday for Game 2 in the series against the Hurricanes, with first pitch scheduled for 1 p.m. EST.
[lawrence-related id=35383,34525,34406,34249,33517,32607,31306]