There was a hot pitcher on the mound at McKethan Stadium Friday night, perhaps even better than UF’s Logan Shore to open the series.
But this time, he wasn’t wearing orange and blue and No. 4 Florida (34-17, 19-7 Southeastern Conference) seemed unable to solve the riddle of hard-throwing right-hander Carson Fulmer in its 3-0 loss to No. 18 Vanderbilt (37-14, 15-11 SEC) Friday night.
Fulmer worked quickly all evening with a fast-twitch delivery and mid-90s fastball that stayed consistent throughout his complete game pitched. He started out by walking Florida leadoff man Casey Turgeon but was able to get out of the first after a double play turned on a Richie Martin ground ball and a strikeout of UF center fielder Harrison Bader ended the inning.
In the second, Florida right fielder Zack Powers laced a sharply hit ball into right field, but then committed a baserunning blunder and was tagged out after being caught in a rundown.
From there, Fulmer would retire 12 straight and 22 out of the next 25 Gators through the end of the game. The Vanderbilt sophomore threw a four-hit shutout with two walks, eight strikeouts and 124 total pitches.
“Obviously you’ve got to give him credit,” UF third baseman John Sternagel said. “[Fulmer] and Beede yesterday, both threw the ball pretty well. We knew coming into it it was going to be a low-scoring game, [Fulmer] did a good job mixing pitches and offspeed and fastball counts, stuff like that gave us a little trouble.”
For the Gators on the mound, it looked as though it would be a revolving door after four Gators toed the rubber during the fourth and fifth innings combined. Left-hander Danny Young started the game, but due to a nagging hip injury was only budgeted three to four innings, and he lived dangerously through three.
In the second, the Commodores came close to opening up scoring with runners on the corners and only one out, but Young pitched out of the jam with a strikeout and then forced designated hitter Chris Harvey to pop out to center field.
In the third, Young struck out shortstop Vince Conde with the bases loaded to end the inning. He would hand the ball to freshman Dane Dunning after giving up a hit in the top of the fourth.
After Vanderbilt scored two runs on a throwing error in the fifth, Kirby Snead became the fourth and final pitcher to take to the mound for UF, and he did well throughout the rest of the game, pitching 4.2 innings, allowing two hits and striking out two batters -- a Vanderbilt run did cross the plate, but it was unearned. He only threw 10 balls on 47 pitches.
“Just do my job,” Snead said. “Just keep getting outs, keep getting outs keep throwing strikes. That’s all I really needed to do and it worked tonight.”
The loss is the first shutout for Florida since a Feb. 28 blanking by Illinois, and the defeat breaks Florida’s school record 12-game SEC winning streak. It is the first conference loss since April 11th for UF, and sets them up for the first rubber match since April 13th’s Sunday showdown against South Carolina.
“Oh [the rubber match is] huge,” Sternagel said. “We want to win every game, no matter midweek, SEC, doesn’t matter who we play, we want to win every game so tomorrow’s going to be another huge game…knowing that it’s squared up, and we haven’t been square in awhile, we definitely want to take that one in our house.”
Follow Richard Johnson on Twitter @ragjUF
Zack Powers walks back to the dugout after striking out during Florida’s 4-1 loss to Florida State on March 12, 2013 at McKethan Stadium.
