All eyes are on Gainesville for one of the most anticipated matchups and series of the weekend. Thursday night, the No. 23 Florida Gators will welcome the No. 18 Alabama Crimson Tide for a three-game series that will conclude the 2025 NCAA baseball regular season slate.
The Gators have been red-hot as of late. After upsetting No. 1 Texas to take the series last weekend, the Gators now have a five-series win streak, a 15-4 record (12-3 in the SEC) across their last 19 games. Overall on the season they are 35-18 (13-14 in the SEC).
Alabama comes in 39-13 (15-12 in the SEC).
Florida Baseball Welcomes Alabama In Regular Season Finale
Alabama and Florida have met 129 times: 54 times in Gainesville, 56 in Alabama, and 19 times in Neutral territory. Florida has the all-time meetings record at 70 wins. Alabama has defeated Florida 59 times. Florida has won 16 of the last 18 and 23 of the last 26 games against the Crimson Tide.
As the two schools meet again this week, Florida once again has a chance to pull-off a top-25 upset against Alabama to continue to shock the world and end the season on an even higher note.
Gators’ head coach, Kevin O’Sullivan will also be looking to make history this weekend as he goes for his 500th career win at home in Gainesville. He is currently 499-151 at home. His next win will be his historic 500th win.
Probable Starters
Friday: RHP Liam Peterson (8-2, 3.81 ERA) for the Gators vs RHP Tyler Fay (0-2, 5.54) for Alabama
Saturday: LHP Pierce Coppola (3-0, 1.15 ERA) for the Gators vs RHP Riley Quick (7-2, 3.53 ERA) for Alabama
Sunday: RHP Aidan King (5-2, 2.90 ERA) vs LHP Zane Adams (7-2, 4.84 ERA) for Alabama.
In his last outing, Peterson threw four scoreless innings before rain ended his outing early. He currently has the fourth-best k/9 in the Southeastern Conference at 13.0.
King was lights-out against the Longhorns. He threw seven shutout, two-hit innings and had a career-high nine strikeouts. As he closes out this weekend’s series and the Gators’ season, he goes into it riding the high of that outing, but knows there’s work still to be done.
Offensively, the Gators will look to keep the momentum going that they have had in their last five series. Five of the Gators’ starters have an OPS above .960, with three hitting over 1.000:
- Brody Donay (1.064)
- Colby Shelton (1.064)
- Brendan Lawson (1.006)
- Bobby Boser (1.000)
- Luke Heyman (.972)
All eyes will continue to be on this core five and the red-hot reptiles offense. Collectively, the Gators are hitting .292/.408/.512 in the last 19 games. They will look to keep hitting hard to send the Gators to their sixth straight series win and another upset of a top-25 school.
First pitch on Thursday is scheduled for 6:30PM EST in Gainesville. All eyes will be on this matchup, will be broadcast live on SEC Network+.
After this series, it’s on to the SEC tournament for the Gators.