For the third time in a row, No. 4 Florida (33-16, 18-6 Southeastern Conference) fell in a midweek game, dropping 4-2 to No. 24 Mercer (35-11, 16-5 Atlantic Sun) on Tuesday.
Mercer is no Jacksonville or Florida A&M. In fact, The Bears are a combined 7-0 against both those teams, the two most recent opponents the Gators lost to before beginning the six-game winning streak that ended at McKethan Stadium Tuesday night.
“Credit Mercer,” coach Kevin O’Sullivan said. “We saw some pretty good arms. They did a pretty nice job, they made the pitches when they needed to, and we’ve been on the other side of that plenty of times this year, it’s just one of those things where we didn’t get a big hit when we needed to.”
Neither team could mount an early threat with only one baserunner between the two sides through the first three innings. With two outs in the top of the fourth, Mercer plated a run to open scoring when a RBI-single by catcher Charlie Madden scored center fielder Sasha Lagarde.
The Bears would score again in an eventful top of the fifth thanks to a Lagarde RBI single that brought home second baseman Devin Bonin to take a 2-0 lead. Florida pitcher Kirby Snead then balked Lagarde and leadoff man Michael Massi into scoring position — second and third base respectively.
Snead was then pulled for sophomore Eric Hanhold, who got out of the jam by inducing a ground ball to end the inning.
After being held hitless through four — only registering baserunners on two consecutive free passes in the fourth frame — the Gators broke through with two hits in the fifth. They tallied seven hits overall, but the slow start was a direct result of facing two of Mercer’s usual weekend pitchers: Grant Papelian and Brandon Barker.
“We saw their No. 1 and No. 2 starter,” O’Sullivan said. “That’s no excuse, we tend to swing the bats better against those types of pitchers anyway, but once again it’s just one of those nights. It’s baseball.”
With Barker and Papelian out of the way, UF was able to score a run in the sixth when the Bears chose to put out Florida catcher Taylor Gushue instead of throwing home to get shortstop Richie Martin. But in the next inning things would get worse for UF as Mercer added to its lead again, this time with a two out home run cranked to left field by Massi in the seventh. It’s the third straight midweek game that the Gators have allowed a home run in the frame preceding the traditional singing of “take me out to the ball game.”
Florida got one more run in the bottom of the eighth on a sacrifice fly by right fielder Zack Powers, and a bottom-of-the-ninth rally posed a significant threat with two runners in scoring position and only one out, but it wouldn’t be enough. The loss puts Florida at 8-5 in non-weekend games on the season.
“Baseball’s a difficult sport,” outfielder Harrison Bader said. “It’s not going to be the same every time, there’s a lot of stuff. We’re just working on level as we can offense and defense and everything and just some of the hits went their way tonight.”
Follow Richard Johnson on Twitter @RagjUF
Taylor Gushue bats during Florida’s 3-1 win against FSU on March 18 at McKethan Stadium. Gushue was a second-team All-American in 2014 after batting a career-high .318
