![Florida pitcher Aidan King (47) pitches during an NCAA baseball game at Condron Family Ballpark at Alfred A. McKethan Field in Gainesville, FL on Friday, April 24, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,x_0,y_488,w_1916,h_1077/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/213/01kr3p747yze525myq3a.jpg "Florida pitcher Aidan King (47) pitches during an NCAA baseball game at Condron Family Ballpark at Alfred A. McKethan Field in Gainesville, FL on Friday, April 24, 2026. [Alan Youngblood/Gainesville Sun]")
It has at times felt like Florida is a one-man team in 2026. That’s obviously not true, but the Gators feel like they have an auto-win cheat code every time that Aidan King takes the mound. In 12 starts this year, Florida is 9-3 as a team in games where King makes a start. If you are keeping score at home, Florida is 22-14 in every other game where King is not the starter.
With two series left in the regular season, King is two starts away from a historic SEC season that is currently tracking to be better than one of the all-time greats.
Aidan King is approaching Paul Skenes territory
On the season, King is sporting an ERA of 1.73 with 71 strikeouts in 67.2 innings pitched. He has only walked 15 batters and has only given up two home runs all year. In his last five starts, King has gone at least 6.0 innings, with his 8.0 inning performance against Texas A&M being the highlight of his season.
But as Nick Marcinko of Gator Country points out, King is also approaching a territory that might be better than the one Paul Skenes had for LSU in 2023. In SEC play, King has a 0.79 WHIP (Walks plus Hits per Innings Pitched) and an opponent batting average of .153. In 2023, Skenes had a 0.84 WHIP and an opponent average of .183 in SEC play.
How good has Aidan King been against SEC opponents this year?
— Nick Marcinko (@marcinko_nick) May 7, 2026
He’s posting a lower WHIP and batting average against in league play than Paul Skenes did during his historic 2023 LSU season.
King: 0.79 WHIP, .153 BAA
Skenes: 0.84 WHIP, .183 BAAhttps://t.co/poJZkRy1HA pic.twitter.com/IB4s5ggh3V
Perhaps even more scary for the SEC is that King is doing this even faster than Skenes. Coincidentally, neither King nor Skenes was a highly ranked prospect coming out of high school. Skenes went to the Air Force Academy for two years before making his way to LSU. King didn’t arrive in Florida as a starter right away, but he quickly worked his way into the rotation as a true freshman and took over the reins as Florida’s ace midway through his sophomore campaign.
And it’s the presence of King that makes Florida such a hard team to figure out once the postseason begins. Florida may be one of the more inconsistent teams in the country, but if King can get them an auto win while also not having to tax the bullpen, that by itself is going to give the Gators a leg up on everyone.
King is slated to take the mound again tonight against Kentucky in game one of the series. First pitch is slated for 6:30.
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