Jac Caglianone leads Florida Gators past St. Mary's

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — For the second weekend in a row the Florida Gators (10-5) sent two-way star Jac Caglianone to the mound with a weekend series in the balance. And, once again, the junior answered the call. Caglianone hurled six scoreless, hitless frames while fanning nine and added a hit as the Gators cruised to a 10-0 mercy rule victory over St. Mary’s.

Starting strong right out of the gate, Caglianone retired the side in order in the first and worked a clean second inning to hold the Gaels (9-6) scoreless through two. The Gators (10-5) broke through in the second, with Dale Thomas and Garrison reaching via a walk and double, allowing Michael Robertson to drive in both baserunners on a double to right field.
 
Caglianone stayed locked in on the hill, fanning the side in the third and striking out two more in the fourth en route to a zero. Florida tacked on two runs in the bottom half of the latter frame, as Heyman came through with a clutch, two-out single to center field to plate Thomas and Cade Kurland for a 4-0 ballgame.
 
After a scoreless fifth from Caglianone, the Gators pushed the score to 5-0. Evans and Shelnut led off with a single and double, respectively, before Thomas was plunked to load up the bags. From there, Evans raced home on a 6-4-3 double play off the bat of Garrison.

Over his last two starts, Caglianone has thrown 12 innings, hasn’t allowed an earned run and struck out 20 batters. He’s allowed just three hits as a pitcher in that span while belting four hits of his own at the plate.

The Gators added runs in the fifth, seventh, and eighth innings on the way to a 10-0 win.

Player of the Game

Jac Caglianone: No surprise here after Cagianone hurled six no-hit innings and fanned nine. He added a hit and walked twice on the way to earning his second win of the season and lowering his ERA to 1.80.

Notes

• Florida won its 13th straight regular-season series at Condron Family Ballpark. 
• Sunday’s official attendance was 5,275.
• Every hitter in the UF lineup collected at least one hit.
• Caglianone pitched six shutout innings for the second-straight start, striking out nine batters after his 11-strikeout performance at Miami last Sunday.
  • Caglianone did not allow a hit across his six innings.
  • Across his last two starts, Caglianone has gone 2-0 across 12 shutout innings, allowing just three hits, six walks and striking out 20.
  • Of the last 46 batters Caglianone has faced, he has struck out 22 of them while allowing just three hits.
  • In Caglianone’s 15 innings this season, he has struck out at least one batter in 14 frames including 10 innings with multiple.
  • In Caglianone’s last two starts on the mound, he collected four hits while allowing just three.
• Caglianone went 10-straight batters without allowing the ball to be put in play from the first inning until the fifth.
• Florida produced its second shutout of the season and first since defeating North Florida, 10-0, in seven innings back on Feb. 20
  • The Gators collected their second run-rule victory of the season.
• Garrison threw out two would-be base stealers on Sunday.
  • Garrison also gave the Gators their first run-rule victory of 2024 with his game-ending knock in the eighth.
• Robertson hit his team-leading sixth double of the season.
• Shelnut connected for his fifth home run.
• Heyman and Shelton moved their on-base streaks to 15-straight contests.
• Florida improved to 2-1 all-time against St. Mary’s.
  • The Gators are now 4-2 all-time vs. the West Coast Conference.
• Florida rose to 43-10 at home since the start of 2023 including 28-6 in home series.
  • The Gators are 38-13 in weekend series since the start of last season and 47-16 across the team’s previous 21 series at any venue.
• Dating back to last season, Florida is 32-8 in regular season non-conference games and has won 23 of its last 28 such contests.

Quotes

On the victory…
“We talked about it at the end of the game, everything starts on the mound. Those pitchers that post up every fifth day, they get paid a lot of money. Everything is dictated on the mound. Obviously, Jac was outstanding again for the second week in a row. Offensively, we got production up and down the lineup. Everybody had at least one hit. [Michael Robertson] had a big double there to put us on the board first and we put back-to-back hit and runs on two-consecutive pitches. [Tanner Garrison] hit one down the line and his last at bat was important, not just to end the ball game, but we didn’t have to run Slater back out there and save some bullets for Tuesday night.”

On the pitching in the series…
“Overall, it was a really good game for us. We beat a really good team. Two out of three at home. They’re good. They’re older. I think, in retrospect, looking at the week the way it went, we faced two older lineups and our young pitchers got a lesson this week that we just can’t pitch behind in the count and we got to be able to throw our secondary pitches for strikes. That’s what Saint Mary’s was able to do all weekend, honestly. It was amazing. On 2-0 counts, 3-1 counts, 3-2 counts they were able to spin the ball. The guy yesterday was throwing a bunch of changeups in fastball counts. It’s a valuable lesson for all of us. We’ve been through 15 games. It hasn’t been pretty at times, but I think we got a much better feel for our team before we head into SEC play. I think we think about maybe shuffling around the rotation. Not necessarily changing the names, but maybe moving some things around. Maybe that’ll be a spark plug for us.”

On Caglianone’s improvements on the hill…
“I think it’s just the command. Once again, his slider and changeup were very good today and he’s getting a lot of swings and misses. He’s got some early contact. Somebody said in any one inning there weren’t more than four guys come to the plate. Threw six innings and didn’t give up a 

What’s up next for the Florida Gators

The Gators will play four games at home next week starting with the undefeated Florida State Seminoles on Tuesday night. After that SEC play begins with the No. 4 Texas A&M Aggies visiting Gainesville this weekend.