Conference plays continued to bring out the worst Florida baseball has to offer Saturday afternoon as the Georgia Bulldogs defeated the Gators, 17-2.
The 15-run margin satisfies the run rule in place during SEC play, but Florida played all nine innings after the final six Georgia runs in the ninth inning. The Bulldogs scored runs in each of the first five innings and led the Gators 9-0 before the first Gators run of the day came in the sixth.
Brendan Lawson broke the shutout with an RBI single to score Bobby Boser and Hayden Yost hit his first career home run in the seventh, but the blowout loss (and series loss) overshadowed the only two positives for the Orange and Blue on the day.
Billy Barlow took the loss for the Gators, allowing six earned runs on seven hits, three of which were homers, and two walks. Barlow isn’t typically a weekend starter for Florida but got the call with Liam Peterson and Pierce Coppola both dealing with injuries.
McCall Biemiller didn’t have much success in relief of Barlow after striking out the side against FAMU earlier in the week. Georgia went deep twice off Biemiller, scoring three runs, but he did record four strikeouts over two innings. Carlos Montsdeoca and Felix Ong made their Florida debuts with the rout on. Neither surrenders a long ball, but Georgia tagged Montsdeoca for two runs and Ong for three. Like Biemiller, Ong had four strikeouts over two innings of work, providing a very thin silver lining.
Jacob Gomberg was the last man out of the bullpen and gave up three extra-base hits (two doubles and a home run) as Florida crawled to the finish line. His ERA is now 63.00 on the season after being given the ball against two hot offenses in blowout games. Remember, Gomberg is coming back from Tommy John surgery that kept him out all of last year— a brutal way to welcome a redshirt freshman back.
Florida will attempt to salvage what’s left of the series on Sunday at 1 p.m. EDT. The Gators are still in search of their first conference win after starting the season 0-5 against SEC teams.
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