Colleges

Gator baseball endures a precipitous drop off

In 2005, Florida reached the World Series final. In 2006, it won't even qualify for the SEC tournament thanks to injuries and bad luck.

By ANTONYA ENGLISH
Published May 20, 2006

GAINESVILLE - No matter where they are or who they're around, Florida baseball players face the same question: What's wrong? "Everywhere we go, the airport, around campus, in classes," said junior outfielder Brian LeClerc, a Clearwater native. "I get phone calls from even people involved in Major League Baseball, and they are all just asking what's going on. It's that bad.

"(ESPN analyst) Harold Reynolds, who is a good friend of our third baseman David Cash's dad, called, and he's asking what's going on. He picked us to win the whole thing. Everybody wants to know what's wrong. And we don't know. If we knew there was one ingredient, we would have fixed it by now."

How did the Gators go from national runnerup last season to preseason No.1 to last in the SEC East, ineligible for the eight-team SEC tournament and most likely out of the NCAA tournament?

The players and coaches will ponder that for years to come. The Gators are 9-20 in the SEC, 27-28 overall and 3-9 in their past 12. "We went into this year with expectations higher than last year, and that's how hard we worked in the fall and the spring," sophomore Brandon McArthur said. "We didn't take anything for granted. We didn't live in the past or on the fact that we played for a national championship. We had something more to do this year. But things just haven't gone our way."

"It seems like nothing has been going right this year," senior closer Darren O'Day said. "Last year, everything went right."

Indeed it did.

Florida went a school-best 48-23, losing to Texas in the final of the College World Series. The Gators began this season ranked No.1 by Collegiate Baseball. But that didn't reflect the problems Florida faced even before the fall semester began.

Two days before classes, pitcher Alan Horne, a 10-game winner last season, announced he was turning pro. A day later, all-SEC shortstop Justin Tordi followed suit. There was no time to recruit replacements.

Then there were the injuries, about which coach Pat McMahon quipped, "The list is like a book."

McMahon expected his rotation to consist of Horne, Stephen Locke and Bryan Ball. Horne left, then Locke injured his elbow in the fall and had season-ending Tommy John surgery. Ball (5-9, 4.66 ERA) struggled as a series-opening starter, and a consistent series-closing starter never emerged.

Daniel Brooks, who hit .600 against left-handers in the fall, broke his thumb and missed the season. (Florida is 8-13 vs. left-handed pitchers.) All-American Matt LaPorta (26 home runs last season), missed 16 games with an injured oblique muscle, and designated hitter Jared Kubin injured his right arm and missed the season.

That effectively took the Nos. 3, 4 and 5 hitters out of the lineup. Eventually, the Gators were without seven starters and using walk-ons. The numbers also tell the story. Last year, Florida's five best hitters - LeClerc, Adam Davis, LaPorta, Gavin Dickey and Brian Jeroloman - hit a combined .301. This year, they are at .271 heading into the final series.

In 2005, the Gators were 25-14 in games decided by three runs or fewer. This year, they are 14-16.Last season, Florida stole 67 bases, this year 28.

"Once the "luck' starts turning bad, it gets hard. You struggle more, and you try and do more. Then you're in trouble," O'Day said. "Baseball's a funny game like that. It's a lot more of a superstitious sport than a lot of others. It gets tough to get out of a funk like we got into."

So McMahon is measuring his victories in other ways. The players who still come in early and leave late, the 18 players with a 3.0 or better grade point average this semester. After two losses at Alabama, the flight attendant told McMahon of his players, "That's the finest group of young men I've seen."

It hasn't ended his sleepless nights spent wondering what, if anything, he could have done differently. "It's been a challenge in a lot of ways because I'm dealing with a lot of things I've never been through before," McMahon said. "I believe very strongly that there's a reason for this. I love coming to the park every day with these kids because they've battled in every way, and that to me is a wonderful character check."

The Gators' season ends with today's home game against LSU. The players insist they've continued to work hard, have fun and enjoy each other. But at this time a year ago, you couldn't have made them believe it would end this way.

"The hardest thing is knowing that this could be it for a lot of us," LeClerc said. "The draft is coming up soon. A lot of us are looking to move on. That's the saddest part of all. Hopefully, we'll get a second chance.

"But we could be very easily playing our last (game) together, and that's going to be tough."

[Last modified May 20, 2006, 01:58:12]