It’s OK to freak out a little bit.
No one will question the worries you’re having about Florida’s recent loss to the unranked Jacksonville Dolphins.
The bats were quiet and the bullpen imploded. No way the Gators looked like the No. 2 team in the country, right?
You may even find yourself reading texts from fellow Gator fans like, “Dude, what’s up with this UF baseball team? Why is its offense as bad as the football team’s?”
A personal favorite sent to me was, “How tightly does Sully (coach Kevin O’Sullivan) have those guys wound?”
Relax.
We’re four games into the season.
Did you really expect Florida to come out scoring double-digit runs and tossing two-hitters every game to start the season?
Yes, a team like Jacksonville doesn’t have the talent that UF has. I mean, I’m not sure you can count on one hand the number of Gators with mid-90s fastballs. Two hands might not even be enough.
But in baseball, possibly the most unpredictable of the major sports, any team can beat another team on any given day.
All it takes is a pitcher on his game and some timely hitting.
That’s exactly what occurred Tuesday night in Jacksonville.
“But this doesn’t happen to other top-ranked teams!” you might say.
Wrong.
Here’s a quick rundown of some scores from that very same night.
No. 2 UF lost to Jacksonville, 3-2.
No. 3 FSU was one-hit by South Florida, 4-2.
No. 5 LSU was outslugged by New Orleans, 11-8.
No. 13 UL Lafayette was taken down by Nicholls, 3-1.
No. 23 Rice fell to Dallas Baptist, 8-4.
No. 25 Houston was edged out by Houston Baptist, 3-2.
Whew, are you exhausted yet?
Unlike in college football, baseball rankings really don’t mean squat. One great game by a player on a subpar team can affect a score much more in baseball than if, for example, Antonio Callaway notched 100 receiving yards.
Think about what it would take for Florida Atlantic to beat Alabama in football (that would be something for Lane Kiffin, huh?).
Every Owl on the field would have to play out of their freakin’ mind, and quite plainly, the Crimson Tide would have to suck.
The opposite goes for baseball.
One off night for a pitcher like Alex Faedo against, say, a team like William & Mary, and you have yourself a 5-4 nail-biter win that could’ve gone either way.
So before you reply to that panicky text message questioning the legitimacy of the Gators, do yourself a favor: Look at a calendar.
Patrick Pinak is the online sports editor. His column appears on Thursdays. Contact him at ppinak@alligator.org, and follow him on Twitter @pinakk12.
Coach Kevin O'Sullivan and the Gators dropped their first home game since March 23 in an 8-4 loss against Jacksonville Tuesday night. “We’ve gotta clean up some mistakes,” O'Sullivan said.
