Florida baseball falls to Jacksonville in midweek action
Florida pitchers hit six batters on Tuesday night as the Gators fell to the Jacksonville Dolphins. Here's how the stunning loss happened.
Florida lost to Jacksonville, 4-3, on Tuesday night. The Gators hit a season-high six batters in the loss, including two in a disastrous eighth inning. Schuyler Sandford struggled out of the gate, walking two of the first three batters and bothcing a pickoff attempt.
He recovered to get through the inning without giving up a run, but he didn't make it out of the second. Sandford neared 49 pitches after just five outs, so Kevin O'Sullivan brought in Eli Blair earlier than expected. Blair hit the first batter he faced, but forced a groundout to keep Jacksonville off the board.
Florida didn't do much offensively until the third. Brendan Lawson and Cole Stanford singled in the first and second, respectively, but neither came around to score. Lawson drove in the first run of the game with a sacrifice fly, capitalizing on a leadoff triple from Kolt Myers.
Ethan Surowiec drove in Kyle Jones, who walked earlier in the inning. Blair hit another batter in the third. A wild pitch and passed ball got him over to third base, but he got out of it again.