Red-hot Florida baseball ends regular season with three game set against Alabama
Red-hot Florida baseball ends regular season with three game set against Alabama
Florida returned to national relevance last weekend with a sixth straight series win against the SEC and a season-defining victory against the previously No. 1-ranked Texas Longhorns. The Gators now have a chance to end the regular season with a .500 record or better in conference play as the Alabama Crimson Tide come to Gainesville for a three-game series starting Thursday.
Starting shortstop Colby Shelton is once again listed as out on the SEC Availability Report heading into the weekend. He's missed the past few weeks and Florida's offense has kept pace, but the rest of the lineup is going to suffer at some point with him on the bench. McCall Biemiller, Niko Janssens and Jacob Gomberg are all new additions to the injury report, giving Florida limited left-handed relief arms this weekend.
The good news is that Florida's big lefty, Pierce Coppola, is back in the fold and should look to go four innings in his third start back from injury. Liam Peterson is the expected Friday night starter, with Coppola going Saturday and freshman Aidan King in the Sunday slot.
Florida has all but secured a playoff spot, but there's an outside shot at hosting a regional with the second-half surge coming together. A sweep of Alabama may do the trick, but a deep run in Hoover might also be needed. Here's what the Gators are putting on the field this weekend.
Projected Starting Lineup: Florida Gators
Pos. Player Name AVG OBP SLG AB R H HR RBI C Luke Heyman .301 .394 .578 173 37 52 13 44 1B Brody Donay .303 .422 .642 165 349 50 14 31 2B Justin Nadeau .289 .423 .423 142 31 41 3 21 3B Brendan Lawson .316 .429 .535 187 39 59 9 54 SS Bobby Boser .319 .422 .578 204 62 65 14 54 LF Blake Cyr .253 .358 .414 174 40 44 7 29 CF Hayden Yost .283 .399 .415 159 36 45 3 33 RF Ashton Wilson .247 .407 .400 85 23 21 3 19 DH Ty Evans .240 .294 .430 100 21 24 3 23
Probable Starters: Game 1 - Thursday (6:30 p.m. ET)
Team Pitcher Record ERA FLORIDA RHP Liam Peterson 8-2 3.81 ALABAMA RHP Tyler Fay 0-2 5.54
NOTES: Liam Peterson threw Saturday last weekend, but he only went four innings (66 pitches). Florida's ace should be rested, and the SEC Tournament starts next Tuesday, May 20, so he needs to be on the right throwing schedule. Texas put more bat to ball against Peterson last weekend than we're used to seeing, but the Longhorns are one of the nation's elite programs. Alabama isn't much easier of an opponent, but Peterson's strikeout numbers should return to normal.
Tyler Fay started the year as a bullpen arm for Alabama, but has moved into the starting rotation over the last month or so. He's a power sinker-slider guy who can run it up to 95 mph and mix in a changeup. His walk rate is down from 9.6% to 5.7% as a freshman, but the strikeout rate also slightly dipped from 19.3% to 17.6%. Fay's ground ball rate is also notable in Year 2, moving above 50% while his fly ball rate drops below 30%. Florida's not going to mash against this guy, but this Gators team isn't built to win off the home run.
Probable Starters: Game 2 - Friday (6:30 p.m. ET)
Team Pitcher Record ERA FLORIDA RHP Pierce Coppola 3-0 1.15 ALABAMA RHP Riley Quick 7-2 3.53
NOTES: Pierce Coppola being back in the rotation helps Florida's bullpen a lot, especially the guys who have been throwing multiple times a series the last couple of months. Coppola hasn't been able to avoid the injury bug at any point in his college career, but he's back in the fold for a postseason push similar to last year. Coppola is still ramping up, so expect him to go no more than four innings. His stuff has seemed the same, as far as generating swing and miss goes, but there's some hesitancy there that hasn't been addressed fully just yet. Still, he's a good option to get through the lineup once, maybe twice, before turning things over to the 'pen. Big strikeout numbers and a low ERA are never bad.
Riley Quick missed all of last season with Tommy John, but he's been Alabama's most impressive starter in his return season. With a 3.53 ERA and 57 strikeouts to just 18 walks over 51 innings, Quick is going to be another tough starter to crack. His fastball runs up to 99 mph and sits 96-97 most of the time and his mid-80s slider can be a plus pitch when it's on. Quick also has a changeup that he's working on, but it's the slider that Florida should game plan for. There are some command concerns with Quick, so patience is another key for the Gators.
Probable Starters: Game 3 - Saturday (4 p.m. ET)
Team Pitcher Record ERA FLORIDA Aidan King 5-2 2.90 ALABAMA LHP Zane Adams 7-2 4.84
NOTES: Aidan King might have been at his best last weekend against Texas, or at least the best since his SEC debut against Tennessee. Nothing is guaranteed in the SEC, though. With Adams on the mound, Alabama is going to give it all to win the regular season finale at home. King just needs to stay away from the walks and he's golden. The strikeout stuff is usually there, and he's learning to go deeper in games.
Zane Adams entered the year as Alabama's ace and held his own this season. Adams is down in walk rate (10.1% to 8.1%) and up in strikeout rate (21.8% to 17.5%). While hitters are batting slightly better against him than last year, his SIERA is down from 4.52 to 3.78 this year, which suggests improvement from the pitcher and implies worse luck, among other factors. Florida doesn't need to worry about velocity here. Adams is a 90-92 mph guy who can run it up to 94-95 early when the juice is flowing. He has a breaker that can come in slow and slurvy or low-to-mid-80s and more slidery, while also working in a changeup and cutter.
Other Players to Watch
It's not an Alabama preview without mentioning Justin Lebron, the 2024 SEC Freshman of the Year and early-season favorite for the 2025 Golden Spikes Award. Gators Wire got an early look at Lebron on the high school circuit in Broward County when he played for Archbishop McCarthy. He showed plenty of promise defensively and had 70 hits over two seasons on varsity, but he never showed the kind of power potential that would lead to a top-5 conference ranking in home runs (17). He only had one in high school.
Besides avoiding the future first-round bat, there are at least two other Crimson Tide bats with an OPS over 1.000 — senior first baseman Will Hodo and senior outfielder Kade Snell. Hodo is second on the team with 13 home runs and has a penchant for getting hit with 17 plunks this year. Snell is the team's hit leader with 73, good for third in the SEC.
Out of the bullpen, Carson Ozmer leads the way with a 2.10 ERA over 26 appearances and 34.1 innings. Florida will likely see him twice this weekend. There's also Braylon Myers with a 2.57 ERA and 49 strikeouts through 35.0 innings (18 appearances) to consider.
Series History
OVERALL 70-59 AT HOME 35-19 AWAY 25-31 NEUTRAL 10-9
Follow the Action
THURSDAY (6:30 p.m. ET)
FRIDAY (6:30 p.m. ET)
SUNDAY (4 p.m. ET)
* Watch links go directly to game feed
Predictions
GAME 1: Florida, 8-4
GAME 2: Florida, 6-5
GAME 3: Florida, 5-4
Series prediction: The Friday matchup is Florida's best with a former reliever on the mound for Alabama and Liam Peterson pitching for the Orange and Blue, but Friday and Saturday could go either way. Kevin O'Sullivan's crew is hot, though, so we're riding with a Gators sweep to close out the regular season.
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