Florida’s fall from the top of the college baseball polls was a swift one — one that surely has people questioning if this team is as good as it was advertised to be entering the season.
After holding steady with the No. 1 ranking in the nation for more than two months, the Gators dropped to seventh in the latest Baseball America Top 25 on Monday following five losses in their last seven games and consecutive weekend series losses for the first time since 2008.
But Florida’s stumble in the polls and recent struggles on the diamond shouldn’t be cause for too much concern; these midseason lapses happen.
Since Baseball America’s Top 25 poll debuted 31 years ago, no team has gone wire to wire with the No. 1 ranking.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Florida — even as heavily favored as it was coming into the season — couldn’t pull off that feat, either.
So pump the brakes before rushing to the conclusion that this team isn’t what it was hyped up to be, because it still can be the best in the nation, regardless of what the 5-6 record over the last 11 games may indicate.
This is still the same team that won a school-record 18 straight games immediately before this rocky period.
It just so happens the Gators aren’t playing their best baseball in the meat of the nation’s toughest schedule, one that continues against No. 1 Florida State tonight.
The defense has let Florida down recently, with the team committing as many errors during this 11-game stretch (13), as it did during the first 21 games of the season, when it started 20-1.
The starting rotation, which was the team’s strength heading into the year, has been in flux lately due to injuries, and the bullpen hasn’t been as sharp. The timely hitting Florida prides itself on just hasn’t been there, either, with the team average dropping from .309 to .292 during the 11-game rough patch.
Simply put, Florida is in a rut.
But with All-America bats and MLB prospects littered throughout the lineup, and Kevin O’Sullivan — who vowed to focus on pitching and defense when he accepted the job — running the show, the Gators’ ship will be righted.
“We got a good team,” O’Sullivan said following Saturday’s loss to LSU. “We’ll be there in the end; we just gotta play a little bit better.”
O’Sullivan is right. The Gators will be vying for a national title in Omaha, Neb., even if they aren’t playing like it right now.
He has done enough during his tenure to prove that Florida will be fine come May and June.
As baseball types love to say: This is a game of failure.
Stretches like this happen, and as O’Sullivan said Saturday, maybe being bumped from the top spot in the polls is just what the Gators need to help them get back on track.
It’s a lengthy season, and the road to the College World Series is a long, grueling one.
But this rough stretch will prove to be just a speed bump on that road.
So don’t jump off that bandwagon just yet.
Contact Tom Green at tgreen@alligator.org.
