Strip away the names. Take out the conferences. Now make a snap judgement. Which of these two teams would have a better shot at beating No. 1-ranked Florida (34-8, 14-4 SEC)?
Team A sports a 25-14 overall record with a 7-10 conference mark. Seven of its starting nine players are batting over .300, and three of them have hit double-digit homers. Team A starts a pitcher with a 4.03 ERA who doesn’t throw particularly hard, with a fastball barely reaching the mid-80s.
Team B rolls into town with a 28-14 record and is 8-7 in conference play. It has six players batting above .300. While it doesn’t have that many home-run hitters, it does have 19 more RBIs than Team A and 12 more stolen bases. Team B starts a young right-hander who has allowed more than two runs in just one game this season, and whose fastball registers in the low-90s.
Who would you pick to win? If you said Team B, congratulations, you’ve given the Mercer Bears a better chance to beat Florida tonight at 6 in McKethan Stadium than you gave Kentucky in Saturday’s Game 3 in Lexington.
While it may not seem plausible when you actually do attach names and conferences to the teams, Mercer is no joke. Zach Graveno, that starting pitcher for “Team B,” has only started three games on the season. While he hasn’t gone more than four innings in any of those, he has been a reliable presence on the mound for the Bears. In his three starts, he has allowed a total of two runs in 12 innings while giving up eight hits and walking three batters.
Graveno’s season ERA of 4.50 is just a little on the high side, though his main use as a relief pitcher makes it difficult to get into any real rhythm on the mound.
On offense the Bears have three players who have started all 42 of the team’s games, and all three are hitting well above .300. But it’s senior right fielder Trey Truitt who runs the show for Mercer. He already boasts a 2018 Collegiate Baseball National Player of the Week award. The week in question, Truitt went 10-for-17 from the plate with four home runs and eight RBIs. His .372 average and .628 slugging percentage also leads his team.
So make no mistake: Mercer is not some throwaway midweek game for the Gators to take lightly. Yes, UF’s offense has been more clutch at getting people home than a 2 a.m. Uber from Midtown, but as far as midweek matchups go, Florida could face much worse competition than the Bears.
Follow Morgan McMullen on Twitter @MorganMcMuffin and contact him at mmcmullen@alligator.org.
Right fielder Wil Dalton registered the game-winning RBI in UF's 7-6 win over Georgia on Friday night.
