Gator Baseball Gator Baseball: UF vs. Texas A&M

rogdochar

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With Gators being so dominant, Sullivan has the luxury of "polishing" his pitching arms, getting ready for tournament time. However, when Kowar "falls off" after 5-6 innings, he goes terrible.
 

Ocalaman

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With Gators being so dominant, Sullivan has the luxury of "polishing" his pitching arms, getting ready for tournament time. However, when Kowar "falls off" after 5-6 innings, he goes terrible.
Yeah, these announcer "experts" keep talking about how the big league potential upside of Kowar is so great and I agree that when he's on he's unhittable. But I'd take consistent, tough Singer if I was a MLB owner. Looking forward to seeing how Leftwich does tomorrow in a big setting on the road.
 

FireFoley

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Good guys win 6-1 to take the series in a game that was like 2 games in 1 or somewhat strange, Gators lead 1-0 after 5 innings and Kowar was simply OUTSTANDING!!!. The best he has pitched by a mile all year. Unhittable. We score 3 runs in the top of the 6th (should have had more) to take a 4-0 lead and Kowar returns in the bottom of the 6th and looked like he had not pitched in years. He yields 1 run only (thankfully) without A&M ever touching the baseball with the bat. Kowar walked two, hit a third, then wild pitched a player home. Kowar managed to get out of it, but Sully pulled him after 6. Butler pitched less than an inning and yielded a hit and a WALK. Dyson came in to finish the 7th, but quickly WALKED 2 guys in the 8th before Sully must have decided he could not take it any longer and summoned Byrne. I guess he decided if A&M was somehow going to rally. it was going to be by hitting the ball and not just walking around the bases. Byrne came in, threw strikes and got the final 5 outs of the game.

As I always say after winning the first 2 of a series, it is time to get greedy and get out the brooms. We did not play great either, but neither did A&M thankfully. As amazing as Kowar was for 5 innings, the 6th was really bad and I wish he would have been able to throw strikes. Middle relief was terrible and to be honest Dyson looks like he looked all of the regular season last year before he found something in the post season. He can't find the plate and it is a concern. I realize they are still young guys, but you can't just give the opponent multiple base runners without making them put the bat on the ball.

Great to win our 8th straight conference series this year (that itself is hard to believe) and a sweep would be even sweeter!!!
 

g8tr76

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Great analysis FF and an absolute dominating performance through 2 games. Speak about defense and pitching; one run in 18 innings from the #20 team in the country! Even our bats are alive. But this was only one game and there are only 8 more remaining in the regular season. One game at a time; we need this sweep.
 

dz_23

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Special team and special year. Its really hard to win a natty much less back to back. Enjoy the ride folks, its fun to watch
 

g8tr76

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Gators are in a tough one right now: 4-3 (a&m) after 4-1/2. Very low strike zone. In the last two innings our lead off walks have not produced runs. Leftwich seems to have the game under control after a rough third.
 

Ocalaman

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Just not in the cards for the good guys today. But taking 2/3 in College Station is really good. 3 game lead in the SEC East and overall SEC with 6 to go is pretty comfortable. Take 2 out of 3 from Georgia next weekend and we're sitting fine.
 

MADGator

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That was pretty disappointing. Series win is fantastic but it seems like they take their foot off the gas once they get it.
 

FireFoley

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Gators drop series finale 7-3, but win the series nonetheless. A few takeaways from today's game only was that Indy seemed to swing a better bat than the previous 2 games. Even tho Leftwich took the loss, he was not that terrible. He had a very rough 2nd inning where he threw almost 40 pitches and gave up 3 runs, but many of those pitches were fouled off it seemed like. He throws plenty hard, but his ball does not quite have a lot of movement, thus not many swing and misses. With that said he only gave up 2 solo HR's after the 2nd and departed after 6 full innings trailing 5-3. The best thing about his outing is I believe he yielded ZERO walks. So even tho he had a long 2nd inning, he did not shy away from throwing strikes. And in most Game 3 SEC series, solo HR's will not beat you. We were still in the game until the bottom of the 7th when with 2 outs and 2 Aggie runners, the hitter skied a popup to short CF. It appeared there was NO communication between anyone and it was clearly Horvath's ball. he was a bit late and as he reached out I know he could see Liput who practically ran under him. Yes Horvath was charged with the error, but Liput was in a bad spot and I have to attribute that to poor communication. Also defensively, Reese badly misplayed 2 relatively easy grounders to 2nd base, although I don't think he was charged with an error. And even being down 4 runs, we managed to get the tying run to the on deck circle in the 9th after the first 2 hitters reached base, but it never seemed like we were going to break thru.

Winning the series at A&M makes it a good weekend. I presume Dyson will start Tuesday nite to see if he can harness his ball movement and throw strikes. He has too good of an arm not to be contributing in a big way late in the season.
 

Ocalaman

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Gators drop series finale 7-3, but win the series nonetheless. A few takeaways from today's game only was that Indy seemed to swing a better bat than the previous 2 games. Even tho Leftwich took the loss, he was not that terrible. He had a very rough 2nd inning where he threw almost 40 pitches and gave up 3 runs, but many of those pitches were fouled off it seemed like. He throws plenty hard, but his ball does not quite have a lot of movement, thus not many swing and misses. With that said he only gave up 2 solo HR's after the 2nd and departed after 6 full innings trailing 5-3. The best thing about his outing is I believe he yielded ZERO walks. So even tho he had a long 2nd inning, he did not shy away from throwing strikes. And in most Game 3 SEC series, solo HR's will not beat you. We were still in the game until the bottom of the 7th when with 2 outs and 2 Aggie runners, the hitter skied a popup to short CF. It appeared there was NO communication between anyone and it was clearly Horvath's ball. he was a bit late and as he reached out I know he could see Liput who practically ran under him. Yes Horvath was charged with the error, but Liput was in a bad spot and I have to attribute that to poor communication. Also defensively, Reese badly misplayed 2 relatively easy grounders to 2nd base, although I don't think he was charged with an error. And even being down 4 runs, we managed to get the tying run to the on deck circle in the 9th after the first 2 hitters reached base, but it never seemed like we were going to break thru.

Winning the series at A&M makes it a good weekend. I presume Dyson will start Tuesday nite to see if he can harness his ball movement and throw strikes. He has too good of an arm not to be contributing in a big way late in the season.
Good analysis. Reese has played above his level most of the year and has tailed off at the plate and in the field the last couple of weeks. JJ, Liput and India are steady and will be there in the clutch. I can't remember Maldanado ever having a 2-3 week stretch where he's struggled like he has of late. And I'll be interested to see how Dalton handles the pressure of post season play. He strikes out a lot and his BA has dipped quite a bit the last month. Brady Smith is really coming on as a freshman and Langworthy has brought his average above .300 after a real slow start. They need close out the last 7 games strong to keep their #1 or #2 seed in the NCAA's.
 

GatorStud

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MSN-Emoticon-baseball-055.gif Positive psyche over a conveyor belt of games, Go Gators!
 

Ancient Reptile

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Gators drop series finale 7-3, but win the series nonetheless. A few takeaways from today's game only was that Indy seemed to swing a better bat than the previous 2 games. Even tho Leftwich took the loss, he was not that terrible. He had a very rough 2nd inning where he threw almost 40 pitches and gave up 3 runs, but many of those pitches were fouled off it seemed like. He throws plenty hard, but his ball does not quite have a lot of movement, thus not many swing and misses. With that said he only gave up 2 solo HR's after the 2nd and departed after 6 full innings trailing 5-3. The best thing about his outing is I believe he yielded ZERO walks. So even tho he had a long 2nd inning, he did not shy away from throwing strikes. And in most Game 3 SEC series, solo HR's will not beat you. We were still in the game until the bottom of the 7th when with 2 outs and 2 Aggie runners, the hitter skied a popup to short CF. It appeared there was NO communication between anyone and it was clearly Horvath's ball. he was a bit late and as he reached out I know he could see Liput who practically ran under him. Yes Horvath was charged with the error, but Liput was in a bad spot and I have to attribute that to poor communication. Also defensively, Reese badly misplayed 2 relatively easy grounders to 2nd base, although I don't think he was charged with an error. And even being down 4 runs, we managed to get the tying run to the on deck circle in the 9th after the first 2 hitters reached base, but it never seemed like we were going to break thru.

Winning the series at A&M makes it a good weekend. I presume Dyson will start Tuesday nite to see if he can harness his ball movement and throw strikes. He has too good of an arm not to be contributing in a big way late in the season.
Certainly was poor communication, but I believe that is on Horvath. He should have called everyone off the instant he sees that he can get it.
 

Tunaboat

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I got the feeling that the team just wasn't quite into it yesterday knowing they had won the series. The Aggies were fighting for respectability in their own house and played balls-out. Congrats to Aggies, a good team but we'll beat them 2 of 3 anytime. Can't win 'em all in baseball.
 

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