Jac Caglianone walks Florida Gators off against Mississippi State, 4-3

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Florida Gators were three outs away from dropping their first weekend series of the season. Trailing 3-2 heading into the bottom of the ninth, Florida was fortunate to have their 2-3-4 hitters due up. When Ty Evans was hit by the first pitch of the inning it forced Mississippi State’s hand. They would have to pitch to Jac Caglianone.

The Bulldogs had tread lightly around the slugger all day, walking Caglianone three times including one intentionally. Walking Caglianone now, or pitching around him, would put the tying run in scoring position and the winning run on base. They had to attack. The first pitch, a slider on the black, taken for a strike. The second was scorched but well foul. Caglianone watched the third pitch, a fastball, sail high and away to bring the count to 1-2.

Then a mistake. A fastball over the middle of the plate belt high. Right fielder Dakota Jordan gave it a feeble chase but the 114-mile projectile would find a home on the right field berm mere seconds after it made contact with Caglianone’s bat. The game was over in a blink of an eye, turning final when Caglianone’s size 14 cleat pounded home as his teammates mobbed him.

Florida’s 4-3 victory was its eighth come-from-behind win of the season and their 16th consecutive home series win. The Gators (16-11, 6-3 SEC) haven’t lost a series at Condron Ballpark since April of 2022.

Players of the Game

Jac Caglianone: The junior left-handed pitcher hurled 5.2 innings and allowed three runs while striking out five. Caglianone didn’t allow a hit until the fifth inning. He also went 1-2 at the plate with three walks and the game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth.

Luke McNeillie: The freshman has continued to round into form. On Sunday, McNeillie threw 3.1 innings of two-hit, shutout baseball, striking out three on the way to the second win of his career.

Notes

• Sunday’s official attendance was 5,829.
• Florida delivered multiple walk-off wins in a series for the first time since March 7-9, 2014 vs. Connecticut.
  • All three wins in that series were walk-offs.
• The Gators posted their eighth come-from-behind win of the season.
  • All six of Florida’s SEC victories have been in come-from-behind fashion.
• Florida won its 16th-straight three-game, regular-season series at Condron Family Ballpark
  • The Gators have won 16 of their last 18 SEC series dating back to 2022.
• Yost recorded his first-career RBI with an infield single in the sixth inning.
• Caglianone no-hit the Bulldogs across the first four innings.
• In his last five starts, Caglianone has allowed five earned runs across 30 innings on 13 hits, 20 walks, and 37 strikeouts.
• McNeillie has now strung together four straight scoreless outings spanning nine innings.
• Florida is 32-8 in home series and 47-14 at home overall since the start of the 2023 season.
• The Gators are 44-16 in weekend series since 2023 and 53-19 across the team’s previous 24 series.
  • Florida is 43-19 in its last 62 games vs. SEC opponents including a 35-16 regular-season mark.
• Florida is now 72-53 all-time vs. Mississippi State including 34-24 at home.
  • The Gators are 25-13 against the Bulldogs under head coach Kevin O’Sullivan (11-7 at home).

Quotes

From head coach Kevin O’Sullivan

On Caglianone and McNeillie’s performances on the mound…
“I mean, still trying to gather my thoughts. All those years, and nothing seems to be surprising at this point. Jac was really good on the mound. Obviously, five innings probably ran out of a little gas there, but competed. The continued growth that he’s been showing by pitching off the secondary pitches has been really, really good, and what can you say about Luke? We made our mind up that if we had gotten in trouble in the sixth, and then that’s what happened, that we would go to Luke right away. You know we’d been struggling offensively, so had an idea this might be a low-scoring game, not a normal Sunday game. So, he came in, he was really good. To make a couple of those pitches to Larry, their leadoff hitter with the runners in scoring position to keep it a one run game, was huge.”

On McNeillie’s progression…
“You’ve kind of seen it, this is four or five outings in a row he pitched good. You can’t emphasize enough the pitches that he made. I think he went 3-1 on Dakota Jordan and ended up striking him out in fastball counts. The ability to execute when I took the visit, because I knew how important that run was, that last run at the top of the ninth. They had their shortstop, who had a phenomenal weekend. I mean coming into today I think he saw 57 pitches over 10 at bats. That’s 5.7, you do the math, pitches per AB. We had walked him four times, he had a sac fly, a home run, he made highlight play after highlight play at short. What a good player. I knew with him coming up next that Larry had trouble seeing spin this weekend and that you are going to have to execute, because he’s probably going to be sitting on spin. So, just make sure you locate it down in the zone and when we get to two strikes, we’re going to have to bury it. So, for him to do that in that spot is huge, because obviously that was a huge, huge run. We give up another run and at this point when your offense is struggling a little bit, two runs feels like four.”

On Caglianone’s offspeed pitches improving…
“We just forced the issue early on in the first couple of starts. It kind of started as, okay which offspeed pitch is going to work today, the slider or the changeup? Probably the Miami start is when it was like okay, the change is a plus pitch. That was probably the start that I kind of figured out that he’s got the third pitch now. So, it was good. Like I said, I think he ran out of gas a little bit. It was good to at least have him have a start at 80 pitches, I think he threw. Not that that’s not a lot of pitches, but we didn’t have to stretch him to 100, 105 today.”

On Caglianone and McNeillie’s performances on the mound…
“I mean, still trying to gather my thoughts. All those years, and nothing seems to be surprising at this point. Jac was really good on the mound. Obviously, five innings probably ran out of a little gas there, but competed. The continued growth that he’s been showing by pitching off the secondary pitches has been really, really good, and what can you say about Luke? We made our mind up that if we had gotten in trouble in the sixth, and then that’s what happened, that we would go to Luke right away. You know we’d been struggling offensively, so had an idea this might be a low-scoring game, not a normal Sunday game. So, he came in, he was really good. To make a couple of those pitches to Larry, their leadoff hitter with the runners in scoring position to keep it a one run game, was huge.”

On McNeillie’s progression…
“You’ve kind of seen it, this is four or five outings in a row he pitched good. You can’t emphasize enough the pitches that he made. I think he went 3-1 on Dakota Jordan and ended up striking him out in fastball counts. The ability to execute when I took the visit, because I knew how important that run was, that last run at the top of the ninth. They had their shortstop, who had a phenomenal weekend. I mean coming into today I think he saw 57 pitches over 10 at bats. That’s 5.7, you do the math, pitches per AB. We had walked him four times, he had a sac fly, a home run, he made highlight play after highlight play at short. What a good player. I knew with him coming up next that Larry had trouble seeing spin this weekend and that you are going to have to execute, because he’s probably going to be sitting on spin. So, just make sure you locate it down in the zone and when we get to two strikes, we’re going to have to bury it. So, for him to do that in that spot is huge, because obviously that was a huge, huge run. We give up another run and at this point when your offense is struggling a little bit, two runs feels like four.”

On Caglianone’s offspeed pitches improving…
“We just forced the issue early on in the first couple of starts. It kind of started as, okay which offspeed pitch is going to work today, the slider or the changeup? Probably the Miami start is when it was like okay, the change is a plus pitch. That was probably the start that I kind of figured out that he’s got the third pitch now. So, it was good. Like I said, I think he ran out of gas a little bit. It was good to at least have him have a start at 80 pitches, I think he threw. Not that that’s not a lot of pitches, but we didn’t have to stretch him to 100, 105 today.”

What’s next for the Florida Gators

Florida will host FAMU on Tuesday night at Condron Family Ballpark before heading to Columbia, Missouri for a three-game set against the Missouri Tigers.