Few players have had more success against the Gators’ rotation than Daniel Cantu did Tuesday night.
The redshirt senior had two doubles, a home run and five RBI in four at-bats. He produced five of 14 RBI in the Seminoles’ run-rule victory.
The No. 6 Florida Gators (14-10) lost to the No. 17 Florida State Seminoles (20-3) 14-3 at 121 Financial Ballpark in Jacksonville. The Gators have lost their last four midweek games.
Freshman right-hander Alex Philpott lasted less than four innings against the Seminoles. He surrendered five runs and seven hits, recording just one strikeout in 17 batters faced.
In his first inning of work, Philpott allowed a bases-clearing double to Cantu. Florida trailed 3-0 but quickly evened the score in the bottom of first.
Gators two-way player Jac Caglianone crushed a three-run home run to even the score at three-runs-apiece. However, the game quickly got out of hand in the middle innings.
Florida State scored six runs across innings four through seven. In that same time span, the Gators failed to record a hit.
Florida finished the game with three hits total. Caglianone had two – a home run and a double. He also recorded the last hit for the Gators, which occurred in the third inning.
In total, Florida’s offense struck out 13 times. Florida State’s relievers pitched seven full innings and allowed just one hit.
The Seminoles earned a run-rule victory after they plated five more runs on freshman right-hander Grayson Smith in the eighth inning. Smith would’ve gotten out of the inning without surrendering a run, but a drop-third-strike allowed Seminoles third baseman Cam Smith to reach first base safely despite striking out.
Then, Florida State’s offense took charge.
Smith walked in a run, and FSU second baseman Daniel Faurot hit a grand slam to extend Florida State’s lead to 14-3.
The Gators were retired in 1-2-3 fashion in the eighth inning for the run-rule loss.
Florida will return to action against Mississippi State at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Condron Family Ballpark. The game will be broadcast on SEC Network+.
Contact Luke Adragna at ladragna@alligator.org. Follow him on Twitter @lukeadrag.
Luke Adragna is a third-year journalism student and the Florida Gators football reporter at The Alligator. He is a cat ethusiast and completes the NYT Daily Mini in less than a minute each day.
