For the past two weeks, the Gators have been playing with fire.
Saturday they finally got burned.
After executing almost flawlessly in the field early in the season, the Gators’ defense has seemingly fallen apart over the last 14 games, culminating in a loss to Kentucky.
The No. 3 Gators (34-5, 14-3 Southeastern Conference) will need to get their fielding issues straightened out if they want to survive today’s doubleheader with FIU (29-15, 11-5 Sun Belt Conference) at 4 p.m. in Gainesville, and the remainder of the rigorous conference schedule.
Florida committed only 10 errors in the team’s first 23 games, a number that had it leading the nation in fielding percentage.
But from there, UF made errors in 13 of it’s next 15 games, committing a total of 23 in that span.
While the Gators were able to use their dominant offense and some timely pitching to pull out wins in the majority of those games, the defensive mishaps caught up with them in Saturday’s nightcap against Kentucky, when they lost 5-3.
Were it an error-free game, Florida would have come away with a 3-2 win.
But the Wildcats were able to score a run in the second and two more in the fourth on a pair of fielding mishaps by UF, leading to their 5-3 victory.
“We’re working hard but just not playing good defense,” UF coach Tim Walton said after the game. “We don’t strike out very many batters so we put a lot of pressure on the defense so we gotta play better.”
Last year, UF’s fielders were aided greatly by the presence of Stacey Nelson, who struck out 8.76 batters per seven innings.
But this year, the onus is on the fielders to produce the majority of the outs, as Stephanie Brombacher is striking out 7.85 batters per seven innings, while Ensley Gammel is striking out just 4.58 per seven innings.
“I’ve never really felt more helpless than I did today,” Walton said after a weekend series against Arkansas in which the Gators committed five errors. “We weren’t very sharp on defense the whole weekend, and I felt bad more for Stephanie because she made good pitches but we just gave away outs.”
While the recent defensive struggles have been a team effort, the shortstop spot deserves the brunt of the blame.
The rotation of freshman Brittany Walker and junior Megan Bush at the position has been responsible for 14 errors this season, which amounts to 42 percent of the team’s total.
Walker, who leads the team with nine errors, has taken the majority of the reps at the position this year but could be replaced by Bush at a moment’s notice.
“How much patience I have for Brittany Walker probably depends on how much patience she has in herself,” Walton said. “She puts a lot of pressure on herself. It’s not easy to play shortstop on a veteran team that has high expectations, especially for a kid who really hasn’t played at this level.”
The only thing Walton knows for sure is that things will have to improve if the Gators are to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.
“Defense wins championships,” Walton said. “The offense and all that kinda stuff is all good, but defense wins championships.”
