Gators appear to lock up postseason distinction after flattening LSU

Don’t be fooled by the final score from Thursday night, as Florida jumped on LSU early and was never really in danger of losing as the Gators won game one 11-8 in Baton Rouge. Ethan Surowiec had a grand slam in the first inning, and Aidan King went 5.1 innings with four earned runs to pick up the win.

More importantly for Florida, they have probably all but wrapped up an important postseason distinction with the possibility of one more tier to go if they can close out the next two games against the Tigers.

Florida beats LSU 11-8

Given some of the woes Florida has had this season, particularly with unforced errors and low baseball IQ at times, it feels wild that we are even discussing the possibility of hosting Super Regionals. But as it stands right now, Florida is 11th in RPI and has the second-most Quad One wins of anyone in the country. 

At this point, even if Florida were to lose the next two games against LSU and bow out of the SEC Tournament early, the Gators feel like a lock to host Regionals in the NCAA Tournament, something Florida hasn’t done since 2023. 

The more intriguing possibility is what happens if Florida sweeps LSU, which has essentially thrown in the towel on this series in an effort to make a last-ditch effort to win the SEC Tournament. Current Bracketology projections have Florida hovering around being a No. 8 seed, which would create a pathway for Florida to also host Super Regionals.

The one downside for Florida from its win over LSU and something that could impact its chances at sweeping is that the Gators did have to go deeper into their bullpen than Kevin O’Sullivan would have liked. After King only went 5.1 innings, Florida did get the return of Jackson Barberi, who went 1.2 innings and gave up two runs, one earned, on one hit.

In the end, Florida used six pitchers on the evening, which Kevin O'Sullivan noted after the game:

"It was really good to get (Barberi) out there and like I said, wanted to keep him at 30 pitches which worked out perfectly. But certainly after that, we obviously need to do a better job. There's no reason, like I said, we have to go to our main relievers up six, seven runs."

Game two between LSU and Florida is set for 7:30 PM. Liam Peterson is set to take the mound for the Gators.

Florida is now 35-18 on the season, 16-12 in SEC play. After this, the LSU series will be the SEC Tournament next week, before the NCAA Tournament gets underway May 29.

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