Florida baseball has a chance to get back above .500 in conference play this weekend with a three-game series in Columbia against the Missouri Tigers. UF needs a sweep to get it done and history is in the team’s favor after winning 15-straight against Mizzou.
[autotag]Hunter Barco[/autotag] has been shut down for the year, but the duo of [autotag]Brandon Sproat[/autotag] and [autotag]Brandon Neely[/autotag] has served the Gators well in his absence. Both are better at keeping opponents subdued than their respective counterparts on the Tigers, so the games could get fairly lopsided if the numbers prove true.
Offensively, Florida seems to be hitting its stride after shaking up the top of the order against Kentucky. The top of the order now goes [autotag]Wyatt Langford[/autotag], [autotag]Sterlin Thompson[/autotag], [autotag]Jud Fabian[/autotag] and [autotag]BT Riopelle[/autotag]. Fabian is the only one who is in the same spot as he was when he started the season, and the other two are hitting over .350 since the switch. The trio of Fabian, Langford and Riopelle also leads the nation with a combined 49 homers.
The bullpen has also seen some improvement in recent weeks with the additions of guys like [autotag]Fisher Jameson[/autotag] to mainstays like [autotag]Ryan Slater[/autotag] and [autotag]Phillip Abner[/autotag] who have got it done all season.
Florida could be peaking at the right time, but they’ll need to take this series convincingly to get to where they want to be with only one more weekend left in the regular season.