Gator baseball lost their 3rd straight game to South Carolina, losing today 8-5 to drop their record to 16-8, 3-3 in the SEC. And remember, this was the unanimous pre-season #1 who has yet to play a legit Top 10 team. Yes, when we lost to Miami they ranked the U in the Top 5 for a week. But Miami is currently 11-8, 6-7 in the ACC. We've lost to a Jacksonville team that is 5-14 and got blasted by an FSU team that is 12-7, 8-6 in the ACC and losing today 10-5 to Wake Forest. Plus we lost to Florida Atlantic, currently 14-9. We still have 3-games series left with #1 Vanderbilt, #2 Arkansas, #4 Ole Miss (this coming weekend), 20-4 Tennessee, 17-4 Kentucky and a good Georgia team. Only Auburn & Missouri have teams that right now are playing poorly. Before this weekend's sweep, UF was last in the SEC in fielding, #9 in team ERA, #12 in hits allowed, #12 in runs allowed, #8 in HR's allowed and #10 in earned runs allowed. On offense, we were 4th in batting average, 6th in slugging percentage, 9th in on base percentage, 2nd in hits, 5th in runs scored and 8th in home runs. This weekend will drop us lower in virtually every category. Jud Fabian leads the SEC, if not the nation, in strikeouts with 40, as he looks completely lost at the plate. The team has struck out 206 times in 24 games and the team batting average is down to .285, with only Hickey, Young, McMullen and Halter hitting over .300. We have committed 29 errors for a fielding percentage of .968. Team ERA is up to 3.84 with only 5 saves. We've allowed 18 unearned runs in 24 games, walked 67 batters and hit 23 more. Pitchers who came into this year highly touted just have not come through, as numerous leads have been blown and weekend starters have had trouble getting past the 5th inning. The talent is, obviously, there and O'Sullivan is a great coach. But something seems missing with this year's group and the hardest part of our schedule is shortly upcoming.