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Florida centerfielder Jud Fabian came up in the top of the eighth with two runners on and one down. Trailing 8-3, the projected first round pick had an opportunity to overcome an awful weekend of baseball. Instead, another swinging strikeout concluded his 0-13 series that included 11 strikeouts.

Fabian was hardly the only Gator to struggle this weekend. Florida’s starting pitching staff put up their worst performances in years. Tommy Mace started the poor pitching by only lasting four innings. Jack Leftwich hit six batters on Saturday in his 4.2 innings of work. Finally, Hunter Barco lasted a weekend high of five innings, but gave up four earned runs en route to a 8-5 loss to clinch the series sweep for the Gamecocks.

But the poor play didn’t end there. The lineup scored 15 runs on the weekend, but so many opportunities were missed. South Carolina pitchers combined to walk 13 batters on Friday, four of those were to the first batter of an inning and twice the leadoff guy was put on (walk to Hickey in the 10th, Thompson hit by pitch in 12th) without making contact in extra innings.

The batting order also struck out 45 times over the weekend, highlighted by Fabian’s eleven. Fabian’s struggles at the plate have to be concerning. His strikeout rate has reached 46% (43-99 at bats). I’m no draft analyst, but surely those numbers have to be alarming to MLB scouts.

Fielding has also been an issue so far this season. That’s pretty uncommon under Kevin O’Sullivan as the Gators usually rank amongst the nation’s best in fielding percentage. Florida ranked No. 164 in D1 baseball in fielding (.966%) entering the South Carolina series. Shortstop Josh Rivera has recorded eight errors and is fielding just .901 on the season, a disturbingly low number. Rivera’s struggles have followed him into the batter’s box. He’s hitting .195 on the season and has struck out in nearly a quarter of his at-bats this season. Freshman Jordan Carrion got the start at short in the finale against South Carolina.

Not All Is Lost:

The good news is, there is a lot of baseball still to play. Florida has played just 24 games and are 16-8 on the season. There are still 31 games to be played, including 24 in conference play.

A quick silver lining: in 2017 the Gators opened SEC play by being swept at Auburn. How did that season end? Florida hoisted the national championship trophy.

The Gators have to figure out the pitching and situational hitting, but if there’s a coach in the nation that deserves the opportunity to do so, it’s Kevin O’Sullivan.