Florida Gators baseball drops road game against Stetson Hatters

The Florida Gators baseball team hit the road and played in front of a record crowd at Melching Field at Conrad Park. It was the Stetson Hatters who struck first, scoring five runs in the first inning, who took advantage of the crowd on their way to a 7-4 victory.

The Gators (5-2) had won 18 of their previous 19 matchups with the Hatters. Tuesday night it was freshman Luke McNeillie’s chance to start but the rookie couldn’t get out of the first inning. The Hatters loaded the bases with a single, walk, and a hit batter before McNeillie was able to record his first out. Gio Cueto singled up the middle to plate two runs and open the scoring. Brandon Hylton singled home another run to stretch the lead to 3-0. Juan De la Cruz singled home two more with two outs to cap the inning scoring at five.

The Gators were able to get runners on base but they weren’t able to capitalize on those moments. The Gators stranded 10 runners on the night and scored in just one of their nine trips to the plate.

Players of the Game

Ryan Slater: The junior pitcher came on in relief of McNeillie and hurled 3.1 innings of scoreless relief. Slater opened a cut on his thumb which had to be attended to several times but he was able to last and keep the Gators in the game.

Grayson Smith: The freshman threw well on the road. Smith utilized his splitter to neutralize the Hatters. He threw 2.1 scoreless innings in relief and looked up to the task on the road.

Ty Evans: Evans has picked up where he left off in Omaha. The outfielder went 1-4 but blasted his second home run of the season, a two-run shot.

Luke Heyman: The Gators’ backstop went 2-4 with a home run and also threw a runner out trying to steal second.

Quotes of the night

KEVIN O’SULLIVAN ON GOING DOWN 5-0 EARLY

“Yeah, honestly, it was really unexpected. We ended up having Mikey (Robertson) at third with nobody out and with the top of the order coming up and we weren’t able to push him across. That kind of set the tone. We had back-to-back strikeouts there to end the first and then obviously we did not get the start that we thought from Luke (McNeillie). Maybe it was his first start on the road and that type of thing. Obviously, he’s going to be much better than that moving forward. Yeah, we got off to a tough start and honestly, three of our first five innings we had plenty of opportunities to score, not just the first. We had Armando (Albert) at second with nobody out and the top of the order coming up. Then we hit a weak fly ball to left that didn’t move him, we don’t score that inning.

“We missed a sign on a steal. We got hit by a pitch to start the inning and we miss a sign. Next guy walks. First and second, nobody out it should have been there. Three of the first five innings were not very good. We struck out more times tonight than we probably should have. We struck out 11 times. It felt like we were not getting off really good swings on 2-0, 2-1, 3-1 counts the entire night. We didn’t hit with runners in scoring position. It was a collective group. The infield hit there to lead off the bottom of the eighth may have, should have been cutoff by Dale. That kind of led to it and we got kind of sped up into it with the bunt situation. They went to the bench and we did a drive back play and Hylton actually bit on the drive back and we went to a 2-0 count. So, we kind of hurt ourselves that inning. All in all it was just not a good game for us from the get go. Hopefully it’s a learning experience for them about being on the road. It just was not a good night.”

ON BEING ABLE TO COACH THE TEAM AFTER MISTAKES  

“Yeah. I don’t want to have anything, Colby Shelton made two outstanding plays at short. Ryan Slater came in and did exactly what we asked him to do. Grayson Smith came in and threw 5.2 of scoreless, one-hit ball. They did what they needed to do to keep us in the ballgame. Like I said, there was some positive things. We put four runs up there in the top of the third to get within one. We only scored in one of the nine innings we hit. We’ve gotta be better than that, obviously.”

WHEN YOU HAVE NIGHTS LIKE THIS WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THE TEAM?

“I think everybody’s disappointed. I’m disappointed about how we came out in the first inning. We’ve been good in the first inning the entire year but we’ve gotta push runs across when we need to. That’s why we’ve kind of shook up the lineup a little bit to get on the board in the first, which we’ve done a good job of. Obviously we’ve got to do a better job in the bottom half of the first on the mound. Like I said, even as the game went on we kept hurting ourselves and not putting together good at bat after good at bat. I don’t understand the at bats that we had tonight. We got in a lot of 2-0, 2-1, 3-1 counts and we’re late to fastballs. We’ve got to turn it around tomorrow but tonight is disappointing.”

What’s next for the Florida Gators baseball program?

The Gators will be back at Condron Family Ballpark on Wednesday night hosting Bethune-Cookman. They will then hit the road again to take on the Miami Hurricanes for a three-game series in Coral Gables.