It would have been easy for UF to come out flat in their last nonconference game of the season.
But after a nightmarish weekend that saw the bullpen blow two late-inning leads, the Gators put on a strong performance on Tuesday night.
"It was a big win for us as far as confidence goes," said outfielder Avery Barnes, who was 3-for-5 with a triple in the contest. "Last weekend, it's a weekend you hope to never have, but unfortunately it happened, and it was a great job by our team tonight to bounce back and put a 'W' up."
It was the offense that stole the show, with Clayton Pisani and Jonathan Pigott belting two-run homers to key the 17-hit attack.
But the Gators (31-20) were buoyed by the efforts of their bullpen in a 12-2 rout of South Florida.
Four UF relievers combined to hold the Bulls (26-25) to two runs (one earned) in the final five frames, with sophomore Kyle Mullaney earning the win after three solid innings. His only mistake was a solo homerun to USF's Joey Angelberger in the sixth inning.
"It was really important for us," Mullaney said. "We just needed to go out and throw strikes and pitch well."
It was a far cry from the previous four games, in which the bullpen had surrendered a total of 20 runs in the seventh inning or later.
With a crucial series against Vanderbilt this weekend and the postseason looming, it has become clear that the bullpen will be key to UF's success.
"We've been putting runs on the board, and for the most part our starting pitching has been pretty good," coach Kevin O'Sullivan said. "We've just got to shore up our bullpen. We don't have a guy at the end of the game who's got 90-92 [mph on his fastball] with a plus secondary pitch. We've been piecing it together with some experience and guys being crafty. But scouting reports get out, so we've got to make adjustments ourselves.
"Our guys are our guys and we're going to stay with them. They've had success in the past, so they're going to have to find their confidence and give us some good outings down the stretch here."
One of those guys is freshman Tommy Toledo, who started for the Gators just two days after a relief stint in Sunday's 8-7 loss to Alabama that saw him give up three runs without retiring a batter.
"That was our thought process after Sunday's game," O'Sullivan said. "We wanted to run Tommy right back out there. There was no sense in letting him sit on it for a week and have him feel bad about it."
Toledo bounced back nicely, going four scoreless innings. Both Toledo and Mullaney were on limited pitch counts so they would be available for the weekend.
The bullpen's performance was especially important. Tuesday's game served as the final tune-up before the last conference series of the season, and the stakes couldn't be any higher.
Going into the series with Vanderbilt, which starts on Thursday, the Gators control their own destiny in terms of postseason play. Six teams in the Southeastern Conference stand within a game of each other, battling for five spots in the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Ala.
"It pretty much boils down to us," Barnes said. "We need to take care of business this weekend and get the series against Vanderbilt. Two wins pretty much assures us of a spot in the SEC Tournament, and if we can win two it takes away all the factors of us relying on somebody else to help us out.
"This is a big weekend for us. We're going to come out and play hard for ourselves and for our fans as well."
