All it took for No. 3 Florida’s offense to come alive was a midweek trip to Samford. Unfortunately for UF, the trek to Alabama knocked its strong pitching down a notch.
The Gators tallied seven runs, but gave up 12 in a road loss to the Bulldogs (34-19) on Tuesday. Despite the scoring outburst, Florida played from behind throughout after giving up seven runs to Samford in the first four frames. UF did not score its first run until the fifth inning.
“The thing that really, really hurts is we finally started swinging the bat (well) there in the middle of the game,” coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “We scored five runs there in the fifth, sixth and seventh, and then we turned around and gave up five in return.”
O’Sullivan decided to rest top relievers Austin Maddox and Steven Rodriguez Tuesday, especially after starter Johnny Magliozzi’s rough start to the ball game. Magliozzi gave up five earned runs on seven hits in just 1.2 innings. The bullpen did not fare much better.
Ryan Harris, Keenan Kish and Daniel Gibson surrendered seven more runs on a combined eight hits, undoing the Gators’ mid-game rally.
Samford’s assault on Florida’s relief corps did not stop until Bobby Poyner entered the game in the seventh and pitched a scoreless 1.2 frames to end the game.
“I thought Poyner threw the ball good,” O’Sullivan said. “Just disappointed in the middle part of the game there. Some older guys just weren’t able to put up zeros on the board.”
The Gators scored their first two runs in the fifth and sixth innings, but the Bulldogs answered with three runs in that same span.
Perhaps the most frustrating mistake came when Kish plunked Samford center fielder Philip Ervin with two outs and nobody on base. The next batter, Bulldogs right fielder Brandon Miller, hit his nation-leading 20th home run of the season.
UF also hit the leadoff batter in the fifth inning and the second batter in the fourth.
“It’s not real smart baseball,” O’Sullivan said in response to his pitchers hitting batters.
After Sunday’s 2-1 win against Mississippi State, Mike Zunino attributed part of Florida’s struggles to bad luck.
“(We) haven’t been catching some breaks,” the junior catcher said.
That mantra held true Tuesday, especially considering how Florida scored seven runs — six of which came with two outs — and still lost.
After Josh Tobias struck out swinging and Taylor Gushue flied out to center field to lead off the seventh, Nolan Fontana walked on a full count. Then, Preston Tucker singled, setting up a three-run homer by Zunino.
The Gators had similar success in the ninth inning with two outs. UF scored two more runs on a Brian Johnson RBI double and a Daniel Pigott RBI single while down to its final out.
Florida (38-15, 16-11 Southeastern Conference) will need to get its pitching and hitting on the same page for this weekend’s series at Auburn (29-24, 12-15 SEC). Hudson Randall will start for the Gators tonight at 7.
“At this point of the season, it really makes no sense killing the negative things,” O’Sullivan said.
“We’ve got three regular season games left, we’re getting ready for the postseason and the bottom line is that we’ve got to take the positives out of [Tuesday].”
A radio broadcast contributed to this report.
Contact Joe Morgan at joemorgan@alligator.org.
Johnny Magliozzi pitches against USF on April 24, 2012. Magliozzi announced Monday that he would sign with the New York Mets and leave UF after two seasons.
