O’ Sullivan said he would NOT be available for Thursday, Friday, or Saturday.
[color=#0000FF]O’Sullivan said junior closer Michael Byrne would be unable to appear in all three remaining games if the Gators were to advance, meaning other pitchers would need to step up out of the bullpen.
“The reality of it is we put ourselves behind the eight-ball a bit by losing Sunday night,” O’Sullivan said. “We’re going to have to lean on our freshmen on Thursday to pitch really well for us. And there’s going to have to be somebody that steps up, whether it be Tyler Dyson, whether it be Hunter McMullen, Jordan Butler — one of these, a couple of these freshmen will have to pitch an important game for us if we’re going to get back into it, because obviously we just — when you have to win four in a row, you put yourself in a position where some other guys have to step up.”[/color]
Suits me just fine. I’d rather face Tech, but if UF wins I’d much rather face them without their top pitchers. (I understand Springer & Kowar are both available to start though.)
If Florida beats Tech, I would expect Singer on Friday night and Kowar to make an if-needed relief appearance perhaps on Saturday. But Swine is right: A start on short rest would jeopardize what appears to be a bright future at the professional level. It’s one thing to come in to get two or three outs; it’s another to start.
O’Sullivan’s quote in that press conference could easily be misinterpreted.
“Michael’s not going to be able to throw in every one of those games.”
On one hand, it sounds as if Byrne won’t be able to pitch in any of the three games. On the other, it sounds like he’ll be able to pitch in some, but not all, which ultimately was the correct interpretation.
He just said he only threw 15 pitches tonigh and should be OK. Sounds like they will have all hands on deck…Singer, Kowar, Byrne. That’s Ok. We just need one and we are good enough to beat anyone if we play well. We have already beaten Singer and Kowar this year.
That’s it. We’re facing their Friday night guys tonight. The most important thing is for IC to pitch well. If he can hold them off the scoreboard or no worse than 1 or 2 runs through 5-6 innings, I feel good. We can’t have any errors. I’m confident our bats can get going. It’s not like we’ve never seen Singer or other good pitchers.
I wonder how confident Singer will be, considering how he has been banged around by the Hogs in the past. A little doubt will go a long way toward Hog batting.
Singer is carrying a career 14.46 ERA against us into this start; that’s across 3 appearances in as many seasons. His best performance against us was in a short relief role as a freshmen, resulting in an ERA of “only” 6.75 (1 earned run in 1.1 innings). A close second was his outing earlier this year, when he posted an ERA of 7.74 (7 earned runs in 6.0 innings). His worst performance was in last year’s loss to us in the SEC Tournament - an ERA of 72.0 (8 earned runs in one inning pitched).
Could be either motivation for him to have one of his better outings, or a reason for him not to be very confident.
One reason I think we’ve hit him so well is that he’s around the zone so much, we’ve been attaching him early on the expectation that we’re going to have good pitches to hit - and we have. Wonder if he’ll try to nibble some and try to take advantage of our aggressiveness by getting us to swing at some border-line pitches? Something to watch for.