Jay Carmichael went from being one of Florida’s several freshmen arms in the bullpen to the team’s Friday starter to open Southeastern Conference play in less than a week.
He made coach Kevin O’Sullivan look smart for giving him the quick promotion on Friday night.
“It’s one thing to get your first collegiate start,” O’Sullivan said. “But to get it against a ranked team like Kentucky, and it’s your first SEC game, I thought he pitched outstanding.”
Carmichael gave up just one run on three hits in 5.2 innings as Florida (9-10) defeated No. 10 Kentucky (14-3), 4-1 at McKethan Stadium.
Through three innings, Carmichael faced the minimum of nine batters as he induced a double play in the first after giving up a leadoff single and retired the Wildcats in order in the second. In the third, he got leadoff batter Zac Zellers to fly out to right before Matt Reida reached on a Casey Turgeon fielding error.
Reida was tagged out in a rundown between first and second during the following at-bat.
“All my pitches were working pretty well,’ Carmichael said. “I threw all of them for strikes for the most part.”
In the fourth inning, Carmichael had to work his way out of a jam as he hit second baseman J.T. Riddle with one out and then walked first baseman Max Kuhn. After getting pitcher A.J Reed to fly out to center, he walked third baseman Paul McConkey to load the bases. Carmichael got out of the inning unscathed by getting catcher Micheal Thomas to pop out to short.
“I just really bared down,” Carmichael said. “I had Vickash (Ramjit) and all the infielders talking to me and helping me out big time and (Taylor) Gushue behind the plate. He settled me down.”
Carmichael’s 1.90 ERA leads all UF pitchers that have thrown at least an inning. In 10 appearances, he’s thrown 23.2 frames and allowed just 13 hits while striking out 15 batters.
“He throws strikes,” O’Sullivan said. “He’s got a good breaking ball. He’s got a changeup. He can throw something other than a fastball in a fastball count. That’s what pitching is all about. It’s about changing speeds, disrupting the timing of the hitter, and he has the ability to do that.
Carmichael earned his spot in the rotation after an impressive long relief performance in last Saturday’s 7-4 win against Indiana. He relieved Tucker Simpson in the third inning and proceeded to put up a similar line to what he had in Friday’s win: 5.2 innings pitched, three hits, four strikeouts and one run.
O’Sullivan wasn’t sure what to expect from Carmichael in his first start, and he wanted to make sure the freshman approached the game the same way he had when he was in the bullpen.
“I didn’t want him to do anything different than what he has been doing,” O’Sullivan said. “… I didn’t want him to over analyze it just because he was starting the first (inning). I wanted him to go into the game with the same mentality and he did.”
Contact Josh Jurnovoy at jjurnovoy@alligator.org.
