Florida will look to prevent the sweep on Sunday after dropping Game 2 of the weekend series against the Georgia Bulldogs on Friday night, 6-1.
Brandon Sproat matched Georgia’s ace Jonathan Cannon for most of the night, but the Bulldogs finally got to him in the sixth for three runs. He finished the night with eight strikeouts. [autotag]Phillip Abner[/autotag] came in to pitch a clean seventh, and [autotag]Nick Ficcarrotta[/autotag] followed him in the eighth. Fic gave up another three runs and put the game out of reach for the Gators with little time to rally.
The final score might have been worse if a bizarre play in the second involving the umpire being hit by a ball that was clearly an RBI base-hit hadn’t resulted in a runner being sent back to third.
The rule states that once the ball hits the umpire, the ball is ruled dead, the batter is given a hit and runners are sent back to their bases unless forced to move up. Since the play had men and first and third, Georgia was robbed of what obviously would have been a run had it not struck the umpire’s foot.
Bulldogs manager Scott Strickland (no, not Scott Stricklin) wasn’t a huge fan of the call and let the umpires hear it in between innings. Eventually, Strickland was tossed which led to an old-fashioned meltdown on the field. It’s hard to see what happened and not side with Strickland on this one, even if you’re a Gators fan. At least he got his money’s worth after being tossed.
Game two final.
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[autotag]Wyatt Langford[/autotag] broke up the shutout with a solo home run in the eighth, but the Gators couldn’t muster up much else against Jack Gowen, who pitched three innings in relief for UGA. Florida had several opportunities on the night to score.
Just before Georgia took the lead in the bottom of the sixth, the Gators threatened to score with the bases loaded and no outs. [autotag]Sterlin Thompson[/autotag] was thrown out at home and the next two batters gave the Bulldogs an easy out with two flyouts.
UF finished the night with eight hits, but none of them came when the team needed them the most. That seems to be the story in conference play so far with these Gators despite the obvious talent scattered around the team.
[autotag]Garrett Milchin[/autotag] gets the start for Florida on Saturday. The Gators are 1-5 in their last six SEC games, so this is a must-win. One run in the eighth inning isn’t going to cut it on any night, and they need to get back to hitting the ball consistently with runners in scoring position.
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