Kevin O’Sullivan begins his sixth
season at the helm as No. 13 Florida opens its 2013 campaign by hosting Duke of
the Atlantic Coast Conference in a weekend series. Game times from McKethan
Stadium will be at 7 p.m. on Friday, 4 p.m. on Saturday and 12 p.m. on Sunday. The
Gators will be starting their 56-game regular season at home for the
13th-consecutive season and the 25th time in 27 years. This will be the 99th
season of baseball at the University of Florida.
All
three games of the weekend series will be available on GatorVision through GatorZone.com and on the Gator IMG Sports
Network. Jeff Cardozo and Steve Russell will call this weekend’s
action. In addition, the season opener will be carried on Sun Sports with Nick
Belmonte and Todd Kalas. Live stats for each game will be available
on GatorZone.com and fans can also
follow updates of each game on @GatorZoneBB, the official Twitter account of
the Gator baseball team.
Former right-hander Josh
Fogg, a three-year letterwinner from 1996-98, will deliver one of the
ceremonial first pitches prior to Friday night’s game. A consensus All-American
in 1998, when he was a first-team pick by Baseball America, Collegiate Baseball
and the NCBWA, Fogg helped the Gators reach Omaha twice and capture a pair of
SEC Championships. A third-round pick of the Chicago White Sox in 1998, Fogg
went on to enjoy a 9-year Major League Baseball career with the White Sox
(2001), Pittsburgh Pirates (2002-05), Colorado Rockies (2006-07, ‘09) and the
Cincinnati Reds (2008).
Named to the 2013 UF
Athletic Hall of Fame Class that will be inducted on April 5, Fogg ranks second
on the school’s career list for saves (22), fourth in lowest batting average
against (.208), fifth in appearances (103) and sixth in strikeouts (236). His
total of 13 saves in 1998 is tied for the single-season record with Danny
Wheeler (1994) and his 12.17 strikeouts per 9 innings that season trail only John
Burke’s 3.25 in 1990.
Junior RHP Jonathon
Crawford (Okeechobee, Fla.) will be on the mound for the Gators to begin
the series and will oppose Duke sophomore LHP Trent Swart (4-8, 4.28 ERA last
season). In 19 appearances last season, including 14 starts, Crawford was 6-2
with a 3.13 ERA and tied for second on the team with 73 strikeouts in 77.2
innings.
The Gator righty made a
pair of Friday night starts last season - at Tennessee (April 13 - W - 5.0 IP,
6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 5 K) and versus Georgia (April 20 - ND - 4.1 IP, 6 H, 1
R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 2 K). He was 4-2 with a 2.72 ERA in 12 appearances at McKethan
Stadium in 2012, with nine starts in which he totaled 43 K in 49.2 IP and
limited opponents to a .223 batting average.
Right-hander Tucker
Simpson (Oxford, Ala.) is set for his collegiate debut on Saturday against
Blue Devil junior RHP Drew Van Orden (0-4, 5.82 in 2012). Simpson will become
the first Gator freshman pitcher to start on an opening weekend since Karsten
Whitson (Chipley, Fla.) tossed five scoreless frames and registered nine strikeouts
during Florida’s 5-0 shutout of USF on Feb. 20, 2011, that completed a sweep of
the Bulls.
Simpson was a first-team
Louisville Slugger All-American as a senior at Oxford High School, when he was
9-3 with a 1.89 ERA and had 149 strikeouts and 12 walks in 83 innings. He
ranked as the No. 1 right-hander and the No. 4 player in the state of Alabama
in the Class of 2012 Final Rankings from Perfect Game, was named to the Alabama
Sports Writers Association’s Super All-State Team comprised of 10 players and
was first-team all-state in Class 6A. He was the Most Valuable Player of the
Alabama state finals and was the Class 6A Pitcher of the Year as the Yellow
Jackets captured the state championship.
Sophomore Justin
Shafer (Lake Wales, Fla.) will close out the weekend series against Duke junior
RHP Robert Huber (4-6, 5.19 ERA in 2012) by making his first start on the bump
after six relief appearances last season. As a rookie, he appeared in 50 games,
with 44 starts (41-LF, 2-RF, 1-DH) and batted .284 with 27 RBI, 13 walks, 11
runs and 8 doubles. In six innings of action out of the bullpen, Shafer notched
seven strikeouts and allowed just one walk. He did not receive any decisions,
scattered nine hits and yielded three runs. The righty made five of his six
appearances at McKethan Stadium, the most recent being April 6 against LSU (0.1
IP, 1 K) to finish off the Gators’ 7-0 victory that evened the series.
Last season, the Orange and Blue was 47-20
overall, advanced to the NCAA College World Series for the third-consecutive
season and reached Omaha for the eighth time in school history (1988, 1991,
1996, 1998, 2005, 2010, 2011 and 2012). Florida was awarded the top national
seed in the NCAA Tournament, its fourth-straight year within the Top-8 seeds.
The Gators swept the NCAA Gainesville Regional with victories over
Bethune-Cookman (4-0) and Georgia Tech (6-2, 15-3) and then defeated NC State
twice (7-1, 9-8) in the Gainesville Super Regional to advance to the College
World Series. UF fell to South Carolina (7-3) and Kent State (5-4) at TD
Ameritrade Park Omaha.
Over the past three years, the Gators have a
147-56 (.724) record, the top three-year run in school history. Included in
this stretch are three CWS appearances in a row (Florida had five trips to
Omaha previously), three-straight Gainesville Super Regional and Regional
crowns and back-to-back SEC Championships in 2010 and 2011.
