Karsten
Whitson finally got over the hump.
After going no deeper than 5.1 innings in the first nine starts of
his career, Florida's highly touted freshman pitched 6.2 dominant
innings as No. 5 Florida (31-10, 14-4 Southeastern Conference)
completed the series sweep over Alabama with a 2-1 win
Sunday.
"The guys were heckling me," Whitson said of his extended outing.
"I ran out there (in the seventh) and turned to Josh (Adams) like,
‘Am I really out here right now?' It was kind of funny."
Although his teammates joked with him about it, the freshman put
together arguably the best performance of his young career. Along
with the career high in innings pitched, Whitson (5-0, 2.25 ERA)
set a new career high for strikeouts in SEC play (7) and recorded
four 1-2-3 innings.
The former first-round MLB Draft pick kept Alabama (25-18, 8-10
SEC) hitters guessing all afternoon with his two-seam fastball,
changeup and deceiving slider.
"Keeping guys off balance and staying ahead is really going to help
me in the future to go longer in games," Whitson said.
The freshman stifled Alabama's hitters, holding the Tide hitless
into the fifth inning before giving up one-out, two-strike double
to David Kindred.
The only other time Whitson ran into trouble was when he found
himself in unfamiliar territory -the seventh inning.
After hitting leadoff batter Jared Reaves, Whitson gave up a single
to Austen Smith to put two aboard with no outs, but UF coach Kevin
O'Sullivan stuck with his rookie righty.
"That's part of the (learning) process," O'Sullivan said." You have
to give them a little rope. You have to show that you have
confidence in him. ... I think for us to be as good as we want to
be at the end of the year and for him to keep progressing like we
know he should, we have to let him wiggle out of some of those
things."
Whitson did just that, striking out the next two batters before
Brett Booth finally put Alabama on the board with a two-strike
bloop single to right over the outstretched glove of Adams.
"I know that the momentum was kind of changing their way, so I knew
I had to buckle down," Whitson said. "I almost had that third
[strikeout], but it was a really good job of hitting by [Brett
Booth]."
The RBI single marked the end of Whitson's outing, but the
Florida's bullpen pitched 2.1 scoreless innings to cap off an
impressive weekend from the corps or arms.
After struggling in several games over the last two weeks, the
Gators' bullpen combined for nine scoreless innings of work for the
series and struck out nine batters.
Steven "Paco" Rodriguez was the first reliever to see work Sunday,
and the lefty quickly fanned the first batter he faced to end the
seventh before getting two outs in the eighth, including the first
on wicked pickoff move.
After Anthony DeSclafani got into some trouble in the ninth, Nick
Maronde came in and closed the door, crushing Alabama's hopes of
salvaging the weekend series. The left-hander induced a 4-6-3
game-ending double play, giving the Gators the series sweep.
"It's a big thing right now," Rodriguez said. "We've been scuffling
a little bit and the bullpen has been giving up some runs lately.
During the season you're going to have your ups and downs, but as
long as you put it together when we have to, that's all that
matters."
In a game dominated by pitching, Florida didn't need much from its
bats. The Gators managed 10 hits on the day, but shortstop Nolan
Fontana led the way, finishing the day 3 for 4 with two RBIs - one
each in the third and fifth innings.
