The Gators had finally cracked Matt Reed.
South Florida’s slow-tossing southpaw starter aggravated Florida for five innings before giving up two homers and three runs. The Gators tied the game 3-3 heading into the seventh.
Daniel Gibson then walked Alex Mendez to start the inning.
“That changed the momentum of the game,” UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “Guys started feeling really good about themselves. We had battled back. It was a frustrating night. The next thing you know we’re battling with a runner on first.”
Gibson was pulled, and four batters later junior Jimmy Falla singled in Mendez. The Bulls (28-14) then cruised to a 5-3 win against the No. 5 Gators (31-10).
Florida didn’t feel good about itself until the sixth inning. No baserunner other than Daniel Pigott reached scoring position against Reed, and he was stranded at second in the second, fifth and sixth innings.
O’Sullivan had preached to his team: Don’t hit fly balls against Reed, the 6-foot-3, 210-pound pitcher. The Gators hit 11 of their 13 fly-ball outs in the game during Reed’s 5.2 innings.
USF continued to roll out a train of soft-throwing relievers, two of them left-handers, after Reed departed. Florida never adjusted to the steady diet of off-speed pitches.
“With our staff, we can’t simulate that,” Pigott said. “It’s difficult to make that adjustment, but we’ve got to be able to do it.”
Defense became an issue after Nolan Fontana and Mike Zunino finally hit two fly balls deep enough to leave McKethan Stadium. It started in the seventh with Falla and continued into the eighth. Senior catcher Andrew Longley led off the eighth with a homer to left-center. It was his second blast of the game, the first coming on a 2-2 pitch in the sixth.
“Rebound runs, they kill you,” Fontana said. “They definitely did.”
The Gators out-hit the Bulls 10-9 but also left 10 runners on base.
Freshman right-hander Johnny Magliozzi got the start for the Gators and lasted a season-long 4.2 innings. Neither of the two runs he was charged with were earned, but no reliever could find stability in the game until Keenan Kish worked hitless frames in the eighth and ninth.
Junior Austin Maddox was sent down to the bullpen at one point, but none of UF’s leading relief pitchers was used.
Florida had an ideal opportunity in the ninth with two outs and the bases loaded for Zunino. He grounded out to shortstop Kyle Teaf on a 1-2 count to end the game.
“We didn’t do a good job at all as an entire lineup,” Fontana said. “We were jumping out of our stances a little bit.”
The win snapped a 12-game losing streak against the Gators for the Bulls. It was the first time Florida had lost to South Florida since O’Sullivan became coach.
The Gators now move forward to another midweek game tonight at 7 against Bethune-Cookman. O’Sullivan said sophomore Karsten Whitson will get the start with an uncertain pitch-count limit.
“We gotta get him going, simple as that,” O’Sullivan said. “We’re going to need him down the stretch.”
South Florida relief pitcher Steven Leasure (45) receives an embrace from teammates after clinching a 5-3 win against Florida on Tuesday. The midweek loss was just the Gators’ second this season.
