Florida baseball faces its toughest test of SEC play this weekend when the LSU Tigers come to town. The No. 8 Gators and the No. 21 Tigers will play a three-game weekend series starting Friday at 7 p.m. EDT at Florida Ballpark.
In the Gators’ first SEC weekend series, they grabbed two out of three games from the Alabama Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa. Florida dropped the final matchup, 8-7, via a walk-off single from Alabama’s Zane Denton.
Center fielder Jud Fabian blasted two homers to left field to reclaim the team lead in home runs in the Gators’ last game versus Bethune-Cookman. He currently sits fifth in the country with 10 and trails the current leader, Virginia’s Jake Gelof, by three. Ace Hunter Barco‘s 44 strikeouts this season also ranks 18th in the nation.
Examining team statistics, Florida holds the 16th best team ERA with 3.07 while LSU doesn’t trail far behind at 3.32. The Gators’ hitters also have the 28th-best team batting average .309 and once again the Tigers are hot on their trail at .306.
Florida versus LSU has always been a contested series and has become even more contentious after the Gators knocked off the Tigers for the 2017 College World Series title. However, it went to a whole new level when LSU unsuccessfully tried to poach O’Sullivan for its head-coaching vacancy last offseason.