Florida Baseball: Call an ambulance, but not for the Gators

Heading into the bottom of the 5th on Sunday at Condron Ballpark, Florida baseball was staring at its first series loss of the season. The Gators were blown out on Friday by Auburn and trailed 8-3 to the Tigers after Jac Caglianone was tagged for four runs in 3.1 innings and Cade Fisher was tagged for four more.

It was going down south; it was going really bad. Florida must have forgotten that they’re Superman. They remembered are roared back to eventually blow out Auburn and take the series win to improve to 24-5 on the season.

Florida Baseball: Can’t stop, won’t stop

Friday’s 10-1 drubbing saw Florida fall down and out in the first two innings. Brandon Sproat suffered his first loss of the season after getting shelled for eight runs in 1.1 innings of work. The bright side is that Tyler Nesbitt, Blake Purnell, and Fisher Jameson worked the rest of the way and only gave up two runs between them.

The Gators were held to six hits and six walks and only once got a runner past second base. Michael Robertson’s RBI single in the fourth inning prevented the shutout.

Baseball can be weird though, and Florida responded on Saturday with 19 hits and 12 runs on Saturday. Caglianone had three hits and was a double shy of the cycle, Josh Rivera also had three hits, and Hurston Waldrep pitched six innings and gave up just three runs on four hits.

The Gators prevailed 12-5 to set up the rubber match on Sunday.

But, like Friday, Florida fell behind early. As mentioned above, Caglianone didn’t have great stuff on the mound, and heading into the bottom of the fifth, it looked like the Gators might drop their first season series.

But Florida clawed three runs back in the fifth inning despite just one hit. Auburn walked four guys and hit another.

The Gators tied it in the sixth with two more runs despite just one hit. Rivera doubled to start the innings, and then Auburn walked three straight guys, followed by a Colby Halter sacrifice fly.

Florida created daylight in the seventh. Caglianone had a two-run RBI, Luke Heyman and Halter also had RBIs, and the comeback was complete as Florida now led 12-8.

The only drama left was if Florida would run rule Auburn as the Gators put up five more runs in the eighth inning, four of which came off Heyman’s grand slam.

The end result is that Florida baseball maintains its spot among the top eight in college baseball and keeps its inside position to host a Super Regional round. The Gators have a midweek game against Bethune-Cookman before a monster series on the road against Tennessee.