Weekend Preview: Gators Brace For Bulldogs

Weekend Preview highlights some of the most important story lines from around the game of college baseball.

Top 25 Series

(5) Mississippi State at (1) Florida

(2) Miami at Notre Dame

Georgia at (3) Texas A&M

(4) Louisville at (11) Florida State

(6) Vanderbilt at (15) Louisiana State

(7) Texas Christian at Kansas

Tennessee at (8) South Carolina

(9) California at Oregon

Central Arkansas at (10) Oregon State

(12) UC Santa Barbara at College of Charleston

Virginia Tech at (13) North Carolina

Arkansas at (14) Mississippi

Minnesota at (17) Michigan

Charlotte at (18) Florida Atlantic

Alabama at (19) Kentucky

(20) Long Beach State at Cal State Northridge

(21) Clemson at Duke

(22) East Carolina at Tulane

(23) Texas Tech at (16) Oklahoma State

Central Florida at (24) Houston

Alabama-Birmingham at (25) Rice

A week ago, both Florida and Mississippi State celebrated important series victories, as the Gators swept then-No. 1 Texas A&M and the Bulldogs defeated bitter rival Mississippi. But the arduous Southeastern Conference schedule allows for little time to enjoy such victories, forcing teams to move on quickly.

Florida and Mississippi State will do just that this week, as the No. 1 Gators prepare to host the No. 5 Bulldogs this weekend.

Florida returned to the top of the rankings this week after a one-week dip to No. 2 following its series loss at Kentucky. But since then, the Gators have won five straight games, including four against top-15 opponents. Florida also has won a program-record 28 straight games at home dating back to last year.

Mississippi State coach John Cohen said his team knows it is in for a challenge at Florida (28-3), but the players are ready for it.

“The kids are so excited about the opportunity to go compete in this league,” Cohen said. “It doesn’t matter who you’re playing or where you’re playing, it’s going to be tremendous competition.”

Florida leads the SEC in defense (.982 fielding percentage), third in ERA (2.82) and sixth in hitting (.300). With stars such as first baseman Peter Alonso (.361/.463/.611, 6 HR) and righthander Logan Shore (5-0, 2.59) clicking, and depth throughout the lineup and bullpen, the Gators have few weaknesses.

Cohen said Florida is a well-rounded, fundamental team.

“They just don’t beat themselves and that goes a long way,” Cohen said. “Their kids do a good job locating the ball in the bottom part of the zone, they defend well and they don’t strike out offensively.”

While Florida’s offensive numbers aren’t as gaudy as those of its pitching and defense, coach Kevin O’Sullivan said he thinks that is attributable to the strength of its opponents. The Gators have played the third-strongest schedule in the country, according to WarrenNolan.com.

“We don’t have many games where you’re padding your stats,” O’Sullivan said. “We’ve had our ups and downs with our lineup, but that happens to everybody. I think it’s all relative when you start looking at numbers.”

Florida’s lineup fared well last weekend against a tough Texas A&M pitching staff. The Gators scored 24 runs, their second most in a weekend through the first seven weeks of the season.

Mississippi State brings another tough staff to Gainesville, fronted by righthander Dakota Hudson (4-1, 0.92), the SEC’s ERA leader. His matchup with Shore on Friday night has the potential to produce a pitchers’ duel between two first-round picks. Saturday’s matchup of Florida righthander Alex Faedo (6-0, 2.53) and Mississippi State righthander Austin Sexton (3-1, 2.98) is promising as well, while Sunday is uncertain.

Lefthander A.J. Puk moved from Saturday to Sunday last weekend in Florida’s rotation, but threw just 11 pitches before exiting the game with a cramp or spasm in his back. The junior is feeling better and is probable to take his regular turn in the rotation.

Mississippi State has yet to name a Sunday starter, but will likely make a change after losing three straight series finales. Cohen said he is weighing a few options, but it will likely be someone who is making his first SEC start.

Regardless of how the pitching lines up, the Gators know they also are in for another tough weekend. The Bulldogs (21-8-1) have won their first three conference series and sit atop the SEC West Division with a 6-3 record.

“Mississippi State, they’ve won a lot of games in the SEC,” Alonso said. “I’m sure they’re going to come in fired up.”

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Big 12 Showdown

Crossing the midway point of the season, the Big 12 picture is surprisingly clear-cut. Texas Christian, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech are in the race for regional hosts; West Virginia is fighting for an at-large bid; and the other five teams—including Oklahoma and Texas—are essentially already waiting for the conference tournament, all of them with RPIs outside the top 100.

Texas Tech was thought to be something of a wild card entering the season, given it missed regionals entirely last year but still has some key holdovers from its 2014 Omaha team. The talent was there for them to be a factor, and its been showing it through the first half, off to an 8-1 start in league play and a game up in the loss column on TCU and Oklahoma State, who’ve each played one less series. However, Texas Tech’s three Big 12 series wins have all come against the bottom half of the league. The challenge ramps up this weekend, as the 23rd-ranked Red Raiders head to Stillwater to face the No. 16 Cowboys.

The teams will be going strength-on-strength with the Big 12’s No. 1 pitching staff in OSU (2.33 ERA) facing the league’s No. 2 scoring offense in Tech (7.2 runs per game). After a tough freshman year, Tanner Gardner (.423/.524/.548) has been hitting like the player the Red Raiders thought he could be, showing good pitch recognition and an up-the-middle approach. Even though Stephen Smith (.323/.401/.573, 7 HR) leads the team in homers, his skill at handling the bat and giving good at-bats has kept him in the leadoff spot. Tech has thump elsewhere in middle-of-the-order veterans Eric Gutierrez (.349/.474/.594, 5 HR), Cory Raley (.310/.391/.466, 4 HR) and Tyler Neslony (.245/.350/.459, 5 HR). The Red Raiders’ .394 on-base percentage as a team ranks second in the conference as well, and 36th in the country.

“We’ve been separating balls and strikes pretty well throughout the year,” Texas Tech head coach Tim Tadlock said. “I would say the biggest thing is, you get to this point in the year sometimes, guys have to keep grinding and keep working, keep putting in a little bit of time in each day to get better. That’s probably the most important thing for our guys right now is to understand that you’re never there. You’ve got to keep working as hitters and baseball players.”

Two of the three members of the Cowboys’ rotation are among the top six ERAs in the league, starting with Friday starter Thomas Hatch (2-0, 1.84). Freshman Jensen Elliott (3-1, 1.82) has been a force on Sundays with his ability to mix his arm angles and three pitches, and Saturday starter Trey Cobb (3-4, 2.78) leads the team in strikeouts with 43 in 36 innings. Righthanders Blake Battenfield (1-1, 1.06, 2 Sv) and Tyler Buffett (4-1, 1.69, 4 Sv) give OSU the ability to shorten games as well.

Until stumbling last weekend at West Virginia, where they lost two out of three, the Cowboys had gone on a 16-2 run since a devastating weekend at North Carolina in Week 2, where they lost all three games in walk-off fashion. Rough as that experience was, they took away some valuable lessons.

“We learned a lot from those games,” OSU head coach Josh Holliday said. “We faced outstanding pitching. I think Carolina’s staff, top to bottom—starters through their bullpen—is very, very good. I think we made some good adjustments coming off of that challenge. Our pitching started to align itself quite well from that weekend, in terms of roles, and we made some real positive adjustments collectively with our staff.”

On the other side, Texas Tech has been relying on an all-freshman rotation of Davis Martin (4-0, 1.65), Steven Gingery (3-1, 2.96) and Ty Harpenau (0-0, 5.91). The righthander Martin shows the best stuff of the group, topping out at 94-95 mph, but all three have shown the ability to command the fastball and uncommon feel for the craft given their ages. They’ll deal with an OSU offense that’s endured some slow starts and injuries—star shortstop Donnie Walton was limited last weekend after fouling a ball off his foot but should be back to speed by Friday—but nonetheless is second to Tech in the league in home runs (24) and ranks fourth in scoring (5.6 runs per game).

“Certainly, I would’ve told you that I envisioned a more complete offensive package than what we’ve seen to this point,” Holliday said, “but we have had some guys be really clutch. . . . It’s just a matter of getting everybody going at the same time and putting consistent weeks, consistent weekends together throughout conference play and handling some of the better pitching we’re going to see.”

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Forecast For Tallahassee: A Challenge

Florida State head coach Mike Martin has lived in Tallahassee for the last 51 years. He’s seen plenty of rainy days—torrential rain—days when the field named after him would be exposed to two or more inches and still be playable, in the sun, a couple of hours later.

“Our field is literally unbelievable,” he said with a chuckle. “I could tell you stories that you wouldn’t believe.”

But Martin has rarely seen the type of rain he saw two weekends ago, rain that didn’t stop for two days and washed away the remaining two games of a series against visiting North Carolina State. A weekend later, weather robbed the Seminoles of another two ACC games, this time at Boston College.

“I’ve never seen snowflakes that big,” Martin said, again, laughing.

If not for a somewhat impromptu two-game series against Texas Tech this week—which the teams split—the No. 11 Seminoles (20-7, 7-1 ACC) would have played just three games in the last two weeks.

But they’re hoping for better luck this weekend against visiting No. 4 Louisville (23-5, 9-3 ACC)—a battle for first place in the ACC’s Atlantic Division and one of the top weekend matchups in the country.

The forecast looks promising. Martin said he’d be “very surprised” if the teams don’t get in all three games. And that’s a good thing, because the series looks to be a nice challenge for both teams.

“Having competed against Louisville, they’re for real,” Martin said. “ We will face one of, if not the best, rotations that we’ll see. They’re just very, very good. They return a lot of outstanding players.”

The Cardinals have recently rejiggered that rotation that Martin speaks of, moving Friday starter Kyle Funkhouser to Sunday and bumping lefthanders Brendan McKay and Drew Harrington to Friday and Saturday, respectively. Head coach Dan McDonnell said the move, in part, was inspired by the timing of playing a Saturday-Sunday-Monday series against Virginia Tech last weekend; it allowed both McKay and Harrington to stay on schedule.

But more than that, McDonnell’s hope is to take some pressure off of Funkhouser (4-2, 4.29). The move is also a reward for the two-way sophomore McKay (6-1, 1.70), who has pitched like an ace since he’s been on campus, and for the junior Harrington (6-1, 1.23), who has thrown scoreless outings in five of his seven starts this season.

“In the first game there’s a lot of pressure that you have to give us six or seven (innings), and nobody wants to burn the bullpen in the first game,” McDonnell said. “And (Funkhouser’s) done it. He’s been here for so long. We just felt like this was a good opportunity to let McKay handle that and let Kyle throw the third game of the weekend.”

For his part, Funkhouser responded well to the move, allowing one run and striking out 11 in seven innings to earn Monday’s win against Virginia Tech. Walks have been Funkhouser’s bugaboo—he has 27 in 42 innings—and for him, and the staff as a whole, throwing strikes this weekend will be paramount.

The FSU offense is traditionally and notoriously patient, and that’s been the case again this season with the Seminoles ranking 11th in the country with 161 walks and ninth in the country with a .418 team on-base percentage.

Third baseman John Sansone, a four-year starter, is having a standout senior year in the No. 2 hole, batting .380/.473/.574 with four home runs. Leadoff hitter Taylor Walls, a sophomore switch-hitting shortstop, has taken an even bigger leap, batting .376/.489/.541 after hitting .220 in his freshman season.

“I’m seeing a young man develop right before my eyes,” Martin said. “You’ve got a switch-hitting shortstop that has gotten much stronger, very aggressive baserunner, a guy that can beat you in more ways than one. That’s what has kept me going—is to watch people that come in as boys and leave as men, and this young man is really showing me that trait. He is literally growing daily.”

The Cardinals will likely be playing a man short, as junior second baseman Nick Solak—the team’s leading hitter (.455/.564/.623)—remains day-to-day with a bone bruise in his right hand that he suffered March 25 against Virginia. McDonnell said Solak hasn’t yet felt comfortable swinging a bat but is taking grounders and throwing.

In his place, freshman Devin Mann has filled in admirably, batting .361/.538/.500 in 36 at-bats. Louisville as a whole is bursting with depth, with two catchers in Colby Fitch and Will Smith batting above .400, two first basemen in Brendan McKay and Danny Rosenbaum splitting time, and with junior outfielder Corey Ray—a top draft prospect—leading the way with nine homers and 26 steals in 30 attempts at the top of the lineup.

For McDonnell, the next step is to see his team win a tough series on the road. The Cardinals have lost road series to both Miami and Mississippi, both Top 25 clubs, and McDonnell said the key for his club will be to cut down on mistakes.

“There’s a fine line between winning and losing, especially on the road, and it’s very much like postseason baseball,” McDonnell said. “You must throw strikes, and you must make plays. The timely hit is essential.”