GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A first inning run on Thursday night was enough for No. 4 Florida to down No. 18 Vanderbilt at McKethan Stadium.
Commodores’ (36-14, 14-11) starter Tyler Beede issued a one-out walk in the first inning but had a chance to erase the walk and end the inning when Harrison Bader hit a comebacker to the mound. The ball, however, bounced out of Beede’s glove with the right-hander recovering to throw out Bader at first for the second out of the inning. But Taylor Gushue came through with a clutch RBI-single to right-center field to give the Gators (34-16, 19-6) an early advantage.
Beede pitched in and out of trouble all night to keep the Commodores in the game, working out of jams in nearly all of his six innings. In the third, the Gators loaded the bases with one out before Beede struck out the next two batters to end the threat. Florida again put runners in scoring position in the fourth and fifth innings before Beede worked out of the mess, getting a ground ball in the fourth to end it and consecutive strikeouts in the fifth. The Vandy defense picked Beede up in the sixth when the Gators put runners on second and third with one out. Zander Wiel came up with an outstanding backhanded play at first then threw out Peter Alonso trying to score from third. Beede’s night ended after the sixth with the right-hander allowing one run on three hits with a season-high six walks to go along with six strikeouts.
While Beede was stranding Gators on the bases, the Commodores were struggling to get on base. The Dores’ best scoring opportunity came in the sixth when Dansby Swanson worked a one-out walk and stole second base but Xavier Turner and Bryan Reynolds both struck out to end the inning. The sixth started with Jason Delay flying out to the wall in left field. The Commodores had only four base runners on the night and matched a season-low with two hits in the team’s second shutout loss.
Florida starter Logan Shore picked up the win with 7.1 stellar innings. The freshman scattered two hits, walked two and struck out a career-high eight to win his seventh game of the season. Bobby Poyner worked the final 1.2 innings to notch his fourth save.
The Commodores and Gators resume the series tomorrow night at 6 p.m. CT with Carson Fulmer getting the ball for Vanderbilt.
