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College  | Story  | 4/2/2016

Gators take game one from Aggies

Andrew Krause     
Photo: Tim Casey




Weekend Preview | National Notebook | Perfect Game Top 25 | Video Vault


No. 1 Florida 7, No. 2 Texas A&M 4

Although some outlets dropped Florida from their pole position following their series loss in Lexington last weekend, the Gators remained No. 1 in the Perfect Game Top 25 and they outclassed the second-ranked Texas A&M Aggies on Friday night in the first game of the series between the two powerhouses in Gainesville.

Logan Shore has been as steady as any starting pitcher in the country the last couple of seasons, and he was solid again on Friday night. He didn’t pick up the win however, as he lasted only 4 1/3 innings and exited the game after throwing 93 pitches. While he wasn’t as precise as he usually is, his command was still solid, and credit has to be given to the Aggie lineup for working deep counts and fighting off tough pitches. The first at-bat of the game was a good representation of how the night would go, as A&M leadoff man J.B. Moss fouled off a handful of two-strike offerings before striking out looking on the 10th pitch of the battle.

Again, although Shore didn’t pick up the win on the night, he pitched well and displayed his usual solid stuff. His fastball sat a few ticks higher than he had shown in some of his earlier starts this spring, as the heater lived in the 91-93 mph range in the first few frames before settling more in the 89-91 range. He mixed in his off-speed pitches quite often, but he was almost always able to turn to his fastball and locate the pitch when he needed to, especially using the offering with two strikes to garner some called third strikes and put hitters away. At times his trademark command wavered slightly, and he surrendered three walks in his 4 1/3 innings, but he was always around the strike zone and the fastball life was as good as I had seen it all year, with the pitch really darting to the armside and showing some heavy finish and sink in the bottom half of the strike zone.

Shore’s calling card has long been his changeup, and the 77-82 mph offering again showed plus for much of the outing on Friday. He left a few up in the zone, but the arm speed and arm action are so good with the release and fading life so deceptive that it was still an effective pitch even when the location wasn’t pinpoint.

It was interesting to see Shore use his third pitch, a low-80s slider, pretty effectively over the course of the evening. With relatively few question marks or concerns on his resume, one thing that scouts have been looking for this spring is the development of the breaking ball. He has made progress with his slider this season, as he appears to have more comfort and confidence in the offering, with an ability to throw it for strikes more often than not, but the overall consistency of execution could still use a bit of fine-tuning. He flashed some sliders with solid, short sliders with later finish and bite, but at times he would get underneath or on the side of the ball and leave it to the arm side. Still, the fact that he was flashing a potential average third pitch is an encouraging sign. Shore was eventually knocked out of the game in the fifth after he gave up three consecutive singles through the infield, as his stuff lost a bit of crispness, but it was very much a typical Logan Shore outing in that he minimized the damage, gave team a very good chance to win, and brought more to the game than just his final stat line (4 1/3 innings, 5 hits, 0 runs, 3 walks, 5 strikeouts).

Texas A&M turned to freshman Tyler Ivey, who clearly didn’t have his best stuff on the night. The righty entered the game with a 1.97 ERA and had punched out 41 in 32 innings pitched, including a stellar start against LSU last weekend, but the Gators jumped on him early and forced him out of the game in just the second inning. The stuff and command wasn’t quite there for the freshman, and doubles from Deacon Liput, Jeremy Vasquez, and Jonathan India resulted in a pair of runs and Texas A&M skipper Rob Childress elected to go to the bullpen with just one retired in the second frame.


 

Luckily, the Aggies have a deep and talented bullpen, and sophomore righty Brigham Hill did a good job of wriggling out of damage in his first inning of work. The draft eligible righty has started a few games this season, but he’s been very effective out of the bullpen, and it is clear why he is on the radar of professional organizations. While he’s not the biggest in stature—listed at 6-feet, 180 pounds, Hill is a good athlete, controls his body well, and has plus armspeed. Working to a higher three-quarters arm slot with an extended arm action, Hill came in and attacked the strike zone with a 92-94 mph fastball that came out of his hand clean and showed good riding life and late jump. He was punished when he got behind in the count and elevated a heater to Gator first baseman Peter Alonso—who demolished the ball for a two-run home run—but outside of that Hill’s outing was pretty clean.


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