Florida Baseball: Takeaways from Week 1 of fall ball

Story by Hunter DeLauder

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Week 1 of fall baseball wrapped up Sunday night with the Florida Gators completing their third scrimmage of the week. Team Orange ended up taking Tuesday and Wednesday’s scrimmages 5-1 and 3-2, while Team Blue answered back with a 4-3 win on Sunday. All the teams stayed the same for all three exhibitions, with the only exception being new pitchers on the mound.

RELATED: Takeaways from first fall ball scrimmage for Florida Gators baseball

After a lopsided first scrimmage, games two and three were much more competitive, especially on the mound — with both sides really controlling the zone and keeping hitters off the bases. When pitching is as strong as it was, runs came at a premium, with some guys stepping up when their name was called.

Scrimmage 2 notes

Florida Gators fifth-year senior RHP Billy Barlow toed the rubber first for team Blue on Wednesday, looking for a good start after an up-and-down 2025 season.

Barlow appeared in 22 games, pitched 46 innings, went 1-4 with a 6.26 ERA and a 46-to-23 strikeout-to-walk ratio. While Barlow did throw two shutout innings and did not allow any hits, he gave up three free passes, which was not what one would want to see from a veteran pitcher looking to avoid the very issue that hurt him a year ago.

On the other side, redshirt freshman RHP Schuyler Sandford looked the part for team Orange. Similar to redshirt freshman RHP Joshua Whritenour, Sandford missed the entire 2025 season due to injury, which makes Florida fans think what could have been if they had both of them available last season.

In his first action back at Condron Family Ballpark, the 6-foot-6, 215-pounder tossed two shutout innings, struck out two, gave up one hit and a walk. Sanford sat 93-94 mph with his fastball, topping out at 96.

In a game with not much offense, a couple of players stood out among the rest. On the blue side, infielder Landon Stripling led the way with a 2-for-2 day and a run scored. Blue had a 2-0 lead heading into the fifth before 2025 Ivy League Player of the Year and Columbia transfer Sam Miller delivered a two-run single to knot the game up at 2-2. Miller went 2-for-3 with a double and two RBIs.

With runners at second and third with two outs, team Blue’s Kolt Myers struck a ball to dead center field, but a freshman Cash Strayer made a diving catch to rob him of the lead. Strayer kept those good vibes heading into the sixth with a leadoff single and stole second to get into scoring position.

Following a strong first scrimmage performance, Blake Brookins crushed a go-ahead RBI-double to hand Orange a 3-2 lead. Brookins went 1-for-2 with a double, a walk and an RBI.

Scrimmage 3 notes

Most of the pitchers from the first game were back on the mound Sunday. Once again, Whritenour and Freshman Big West Pitcher of the Year and Hawaii transfer Cooper Walls were the more impressive pitchers to throw.

Whritenour retired all six batters he faced, struck out two and sat 96-97 mph. Through four innings, the redshirt freshman has sat down all 12 batters with four strikeouts. Walls allowed a hit, which ended his perfect record, but struck out two and allowed zero runs in his two innings of work. Walls sat around 96-97 with the fastball, but also used his split-finger as his main putaway pitch, dancing around 93-95.

Leading the way for Team Blue on offense was Strayer, who went 2-for-2 with a two-run home run into the right-field berm. Exit velocity on the homer was 109mph. On team Orange, the combination of Brookins and Wabash Valley College transfer catcher AJ Malzone was the top standout.

Malzone is one of three catchers jockeying for position to land the starting catcher role this spring. In the 2025 season, Malzone was named All-Conference and All-Region after hitting .347 with 10 homers, 58 RBIs, and slugging .602 with a 1.098 OPS. Behind the plate, Malzone’s .976 fielding percentage earned him the Region 24 Gold Glove.

Brookins finished his strong Week 1 with a 1-for-3 night at the plate. His lone hit was an opposite-field triple to get the fourth inning started. Malzone followed him up with an RBI triple of his own. Malzone went 2-for-3 with a double, a triple and an RBI.

Florida Gators injury update

Northwest Nazarene graduate transfer LHP Ernesto Lugo-Canhola, who left his Tuesday appearance after being struck with a line drive, was held out the remainder of the week with general soreness. He did go get an X-ray to confirm no other structural damage and the X-rays were negative.

Other Week 1 takeaways

* Cade Kurland still has not seen any live at-bats, but is playing in the field.
* Karson Bowen and Jaden Bastian are practicing but have not participated in any scrimmages.
* McCall Biemiller and Jackson Barberi struggled the most on the mound.
* Landon Stripling carried a good bat into game three – went 1-for-3 with an RBI.
* Kolt Myers swung a good bat on Sunday, went 1-for-2 with an RBI.
* Freshman LHP Eli Blair looked good in his first outing on Wednesday: 2IP 2H 0R 0K 0BB.
* Blake Cyr showed off his arm from right field, throwing out a base runner trying to tag up from second to third.