Nebraska baseball (39-20) opens the Stillwater Regional with a duel with the Florida Gators (28-27) on Friday afternoon.
Will Bolt’s Huskers are making their 15th NCAA Regional appearance in the last 24 seasons and the program’s 18th overall. In the opposite dugout, is a team with the country’s No. 1 strength of schedule. Head coach Kevin O’Sullivan’s program came a game within winning last year’s College World Series and entered the postseason with a critical series win over No. 11 Georgia in the final week of the regular season.
Nick de la Torre has over a decade of experience covering Florida baseball, including the team’s National Championship in 2017. Here are his thoughts on Jac Caglianone, O’Brate Stadium and his score prediction for Friday’s game.
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1. What word would you use to describe Florida’s season to this point and why?
Frustrating. I’ve covered Florida baseball since 2013 and that first team didn’t have a lot of talent. The Gators were coming off of three-straight College World Series appearances and lost most of those teams to the draft, making 2013 a rebuild.
This team lost a lot from the 2023 runner-up team but has a lot of talent on its roster. They have had some bad luck with injuries. Florida lost three freshmen pitchers including the Gatorade National Player of the Year, Christian Rodriguez to injuries before the season even started. They lost starting right fielder Ty Evans to a broken wrist the second to last weekend of the regular season and his backup, freshman Hayden Yost, tore his ACL during a Wednesday practice before the final weekend series against Georgia.
Florida has a lot of talent on the roster but they have struggled to play consistent winning baseball this season.
2. Could Jac Caglianone pitch on Friday or later in the week?
Florida could go with Jac Caglianone but I don’t think that they will. Despite being Florida’s best weekend arm, Caglianone has been the Gators’ Sunday starter all season. He’s an interesting case because he’s not only Florida’s best starting pitcher but he’s also their best hitter and best defensive first baseman.
Starting a game takes a lot out of you and the Gators want to have Caglianone play first base as much as possible. They feel that if they throw Caglianone to start a series — or tournament in this case — that he would need to serve as just a DH for the next game.
I won’t say there’s no chance Caglianone pitches Friday against Nebraska, just that it’s unlikely given how the UF staff has managed Caglianone this season.
3. If he doesn’t pitch the opener against the Huskers, who would the Gators go to?
Pierce Coppola has been the Friday night guy for the last month, but he’s limited to around 80 pitches or so, which could tax the bullpen, so I would expect Florida to go with Liam Peterson and have Cags pitching in a normal rest situation on Saturday.
We’ll talk to Kevin O’Sullivan later this week but I would expect that Florida would throw freshman Peterson or Coppola.
Peterson is just a freshman but very talented. He got off to a tough start, posting an 8.31 ERA in February and March but dropped that to 5.40 in April and posted a 2.20 ERA in May. He’s definitely turned the corner.
Coppola is a 6-foot-8 left-hander with a ¾ delivery that is tough to hit off of. He had back surgery that limited him to just one appearance as a freshman and shoulder surgery kept him on the shelf all of the 2023 season and most of this season. He hasn’t been very sharp since returning and Florida has brought him along slowly given the injury history.
4. Apart from Caglianone, who else stands out in the lineup as a major threat?
The Gators can mash.
They have hit 116 home runs this season — fourth best in the SEC and seventh in the country. Florida has five players with double-digit home runs this season and are slugging .514 as a team. Shortstop Colby Shelton, catcher Luke Heyman, and second baseman Cade Kurland are all power bats.
Florida lost, in my opinion, their second-best bat when right fielder Ty Evans went down with a broken wrist against Kentucky. Evans was hitting .316 with 13 homers and 43 RBI. He owned a .406 on-base percentage, which led him to being hit in the leadoff spot ahead of Caglianone. When Shelton slumped, they moved Evans behind Caglianone to protect him in the lineup. Florida’s offense badly misses Evans’ bat.
5. What are the Gators’ key weaknesses?
Florida doesn’t do the little things well. They don’t bunt or hit-and-run very well. They aren’t great in situational-hitting situations.
I’ll go back to a situation in Columbia, Missouri to show an example but it’s far from the only instance. The Gators dropped the first two games to Missouri, both games they should and could have won. They went into the ninth inning of the third game with a 10-8 lead and looking to add some insurance to avoid a sweep. A single and two hit batters later the Gators had bases loaded and no outs, the best-case scenario to find those insurance runs. The next three batters struck out while taking swings that looked like they were trying to hit the ball back to Florida from Missouri. That might be the worst case of situational hitting this season but it isn’t alone.
Florida strikes out a ton and sort of relies on the long ball to score.
6. Which team can get the most out of the offensive lean of O’Brate Stadium?
The Florida baseball team has a lot of sins offensively, as discussed above, but nothing makes up for that more than hitting home runs. If the ball is flying in Stillwater, the Gators have a lineup where seven of the starting nine have easy home run power. This park was a great draw for Florida.
7. What is your final take and score prediction for Friday’s game?
If the Husker go with Brett Sears then it’s hard for me to project a huge score for the Gators. Sears has been great but this is a battle-tested Florida lineup that has faced the best pitching in the SEC — Florida played all of the SEC teams that earned hosting bids this season — and they score. O’Brate Stadium is a launching pad that I think the Florida offense can take advantage of.
Score Prediction: Florida 7, Nebraska 5
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