UF Baseball: #2 Florida Wins Series Over Georgia

The No. 2 Florida Gators (36-6, 13-5 in SEC play) captured their third straight series victory over the rival Georgia Bulldogs (21-20, 7-11 in SEC play) with a 4-1 victory today.

Alex Faedo (8-1, 3.32 ERA) got the nod on the mound and delivered another strong outing. Winning his eighth game of the year, Faedo went 5.2 innings and allowed no earned runs on two hits while striking out six, walking two, and hitting a batter.

After his departure in the top of the sixth inning, junior lefty Kirby Snead came in and worked two scoreless innings of relief. He struck out three while allowing just two hits.

In the top of the eighth with two outs, Dane Dunning came in and induced a ground ball on his first pitch. In the ninth, Dunning loaded the bases before being pulled in favor of closer Shaun Anderson. He would finish with a stat line of one earned run allowed on one hit and one walk.

When Anderson entered the game, Georgia had a chance to tie it up with the bases loaded and no one out. Anderson would have none of it. He induced a fly ball for the first out, then struck out the next two batters to secure the victory and earn his ninth save of the season.

Offensively, the Gators were led by junior first baseman Peter Alonso. Going 2-4 in the game with two RBI's and two runs scored, Alonso hit both a two-run home run and a double to center field. He was one of three Gators with multiple hits in the contest.

Batting after Alonso and also notching two hits was junior outfielder Buddy Reed. He finished 2-4 with an RBI double and a triple. Going all the way down to the bottom of the lineup, fellow junior outfielder Ryan Larson finally broke out of his hitting funk as he went 2-3 with an RBI and his second stolen base of the season.

Final Takeaway:

Today's series victory had the mark of the juniors as Sully's 2013 recruiting class (minus Faedo) nearly did all the pitching and run producing for Florida. Before previewing next weekend's series against South Carolina (32-8, 13-4 in SEC play), here are my final tidbits from today's game:

• Peter Alonso's home run was his ninth of the season. His double was the eleventh of the season, tying him for the team lead with Dalton Guthrie.
• Buddy Reed's triple was his fourth of the season and now puts him as the team leader in that stat category.
• Jonathan India drew two of the Gators's three walks today and made the most of it as he came around to score once.
• Both pitching staffs walked just three batters, but the disparity came in strikeouts as Florida punched out 11 Bulldogs while Georgia fanned just five Gators.
• Ryan Larson finally reached the Mendoza Line as his performance today raised his batting average to .200.
• Florida made two errors today between Ryan Larson dropping a fly ball in the first and Peter Alonso bobbling a ground ball in the ninth. Regardless, none of those errors came back to substantially hurt the Gators.
• Since giving up nine runs against Mississippi State on April 9th, Alex Faedo has allowed just one earned run in his last 12 innings pitched.

With a fourth SEC series win under their belt, No. 2 Florida now has a big weekend ahead of them as they head to Columbia for three games against the No. 8 South Carolina Gamecocks. The Gators trail the first-place Gamecocks by only half a game in the SEC East standings, so this series will go a long way in shaping up the race for the regular season title.

The weekend rotation will be the usual as A.J. Puk (2-2, 3.07 ERA) will throw Friday, Logan Shore (8-0, 2.14 ERA) will throw Saturday, and Alex Faedo will throw Sunday. The first game is at 7 p.m. It can be seen on the SEC Network and heard on the Gator IMG Sports Network.

As for Georgia, it doesn't get any easier as they return to Athens to play the rival Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (25-12) on Tuesday before heading to Nashville to take on the Vanderbilt Commodores (30-9, 10-7 in SEC play) in a weekend series.

*All stats accredited to FloridaGators.com