The UF baseball team has every right to be pleased.
In 15 days, the Gators went from four games under .500 to three games above .500 and now sit in third place in the Southeastern Conference Eastern Division.
But there is reason for concern.
Jonathon Crawford isn’t coming to the rescue.
Sure, the junior right-hander has been in the weekend rotation throughout the season. At times, he has also shown the dominant arm that everyone expected to anchor Florida’s staff prior to this season.
The productivity of the Gators’ starting pitching staff in 2012 mirrors that of 2013 in some areas but not others.
Through 41 games this season, Florida starters have thrown 181.3 of the 376 innings, which is good for 48.2 percent. At the same point in 2012, the numbers were almost identical, as the starters had thrown two more innings in two more innings played for 48.4 percent of innings thrown.
On the surface, this would seem to indicate that the Gators are getting a comparable performance, but that isn’t quite the case.
At the 41-game mark last season, Florida had gotten three starts of three innings or fewer — two of which were 0.2 and one inning long — from sophomore Karsten Whitson, who struggled with injuries for most of the year. Eventually, Crawford started getting opportunities on the weekends with Whitson sidelined and was dominant down the stretch. He finished the season with a 3.13 ERA and struck out 73 batters in 77.2 innings.
Crawford’s starts in the second half of 2012 included a no-hitter against Bethune-Cookman in the NCAA Tournament and six shutout innings in a regular-season outing against LSU.
Those are the type of efforts the Gators aren’t getting on a regular basis this year.
Florida starters have combined for just three quality starts when the pitcher goes at least six innings and gives up three runs or fewer — this season. Freshmen Danny Young and Jay Carmichael have each had starts where they went 5.1 innings with no runs or 5.2 innings with one run, but Crawford is the only starter to throw a quality start this season, and he has just three. No one else has even gone six innings in a start.
In 2012, the Gators had twice that number of quality starts through only 19 games. At this point, they had three different starters combine to throw eight quality starts.
Thus, there was reason to believe there would be more of those starts later in the year as Crawford got more consistent time.
Carmichael, who had a stretch where he gave up just three runs in 16.1 innings before a mediocre start against Ole Miss and an arm injury, could still return to form, but he wouldn’t be joining two pitchers as experienced and effective as Brian Johnson and Hudson Randall as Crawford did a year ago.
Bobby Poyner has started the last two midweek games — both UF wins — and will likely get the nod again tonight as Florida (22-19) hosts USF (26-14) at 7. Poyner went four innings against FSU and 5.1 against FGCU and gave up one run in each outing.
If Poyner can continue to stretch himself out and the other starters do the same, the Gators might avoid working their bullpen to death before postseason play.
Contact Josh Jurnovoy at jjurnovoy@alligator.org.
Junior Jonathon Crawford warms up on the mound during Florida’s 3-2 win against South Carolina on April 11 at McKethan Stadium. Crawford and No. 3 seed Florida will face No. 2 seed Austin Peay in its first NCAA Tournament game on Friday.
