Florida Baseball: The Gators are officially in the danger zone for 2024

Coming into the 2024 season, expectations were sky high for Florida Baseball. After finishing one game shy of winning the national title in 2023, there was plenty of reason to believe the Gators would be a contender in 2024. Jac Caglianone was back, multiple young contributors were also back, and the Gators picked up a key bat out of the transfer portal.

With five weeks left in the regular season, it is now safe to say that while Florida has demonstrated at times it is capable of a deep run in June, it is in danger of not making it to June all together.

Florida Baseball: Highway To The Danger Zone

The Gators dropped two of three games to South Carolina this weekend. Combined with losing to FSU earlier in the week and being swept by Missouri last week, Florida entered yesterday's game on a six-game losing streak. After taking an 11-5 lead heading into the 8th, Florida tried it's best to make it seven in a row before finally closing the door.

Now ranked 43rd in RPI, Florida has fallen out of any contention to host Regionals and is in real danger of missing the NCAA Tournament.

Prior to the Missouri series this didn't feel like it was the case. While the Gators had gotten away with some tightwire acts, they had still yet to drop a three game series. In fact Florida's resume seemed solid, with series wins over LSU, Mississippi State, Miami, and Texas A&M.

Fast forward seven games, LSU and Miami are struggling themselves and outside of Texas A&M there just aren't many quality wins on the resume.

Caglianone has done his part, but he isn't getting much support. Ty Evans broke out of his mini slump over the weekend, but he is the only other Gator with a batting average over .275. Cade Kurland keeps making mental mistakes in the field, Tyler Shelnut hasn't quite taken the leap forward at the plate many hope for, and transfer Colby Shelton has been okay in spots byt consistency has been an issue.

Combined with a pitching staff that seems unable to get anyone out unless Caglianone is on the mound, and the final five weeks of this season are about the get very scary. The next four weekend series the Gators have are all against top ten opponents.

If Florida can go .500 over that stretch, they can emerge battle tested and will probably be okay heading into the NCAA Tournament.

But given the flaws on this team, Florida is in danger of having the bottom fall out in a heartbeat.