Five innings, nine hits, eight runs, three hit batters and 95 pitches.
That sounds like a terrible day at the park for one starting pitcher. But in Florida’s weekend series loss to LSU, that’s the line left-hander Brian Johnson and right-hander Karsten Whitson combined to form in their respective Thursday night and Saturday afternoon starts.
Once the strength of the team, boasting a weekend rotation completely intact from a year ago, the Gators’ pitching staff looked like it was in shambles against the Tigers.
“If we’re doing something well one game, we’re not doing something well on the other side — either if it’s pitching, defense or hitting,” senior right fielder Preston Tucker said. “We can’t quite piece it all together.”
Pitching is generally the area to blame when a team scores 20 runs in a series, yet loses two out of three games. It can also be blamed when a team falls behind 6-2 in the fourth inning, as the Gators did Thursday night. Or when a team drops a game after leading 7-2, as the Gators did on Saturday.
With usual No. 1 starter Hudson Randall out for the weekend with what UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan called a “tired arm,” No. 1 Florida (25-7, 7-5 Southeastern Conference) went into makeshift mode when putting together its weekend rotation against No. 12 LSU (25-7, 8-4 SEC).
Johnson was moved up into the No. 1 spot, Whitson was given the No. 3 spot for his first weekend appearance since Feb. 26 and sophomore Jonathon Crawford was slated to handle Friday night’s pitching matchup against former sixth-round Major League draft pick Kevin Gausman.
“We’ve got to put some zeroes on the board,” O’Sullivan said after Thursday night’s loss.
Ironically, the zeros came from Florida’s starting pitcher with the least experience. Crawford, who threw just 3.2 innings as a freshman, out-dueled Gausman en route to a 7-0 win on Friday night.
Then it was back to experience, and the regularly scheduled LSU slugfest.
Whitson lasted just seven batters, hitting the leadoff man in the first and second innings before getting pulled in favor of Steven Rodriguez. The floodgates only opened further for Rodriguez, as he surrendered three runs in four innings. O’Sullivan was quick to answer when asked if Whitson’s early exit had anything to do with health.
After opening the season as the Gators’ No. 2 starter, Whitson missed more than a month with an arm injury.
“He’s fine,” O’Sullivan said.
Meanwhile, Florida is not “fine.” When rankings come out today, the Gators will not be the overwhelming No. 1 team for the first time this season.
They have lost five of their past seven games, including consecutive series losses to SEC foes. Florida lost just two SEC series all of last season. It now trails Kentucky in the SEC East standings.
The bright spot is that aside from an unusual five-run loss at North Florida, UF has lost four games by a combined six runs, often in strange fashion.
“It’s frustrating, but we gotta bounce back, simple as that,” O’Sullivan said. “We got a good team. We’ll be there in the end. We just gotta play a little bit better.”
