A Positive Outlook on a Rough Year from Florida Gators Pitching

The Florida Gators endured big growing pains on their way to making a long post-season run.

Florida Gators starter Pierce Coppola earned valuable experience in 2024. / Gary Cosby Jr.-Tuscaloosa News / USA

Last season marked the worst team ERA under Head Coach Kevin O’Sullivan during his time with the Florida Gators.

Ranking dead last in the SEC and as the 152nd-best in the country, Florida’s pitching staff recorded a 6.05 ERA as a unit in 2024. 

That is far too high of a number for a team that is trying to win it all. Furthermore, it is a huge difference from last year’s team (4.65 ERA in 2023) who made it to the College World Series final. 

Why was it so high?

The short answer is O’Sullivan used a plethora of young and inexperienced arms. 
On their roster, the Gators had 12 freshmen, two sophomores, five juniors and no senior pitchers. 

The only pitchers who had many innings under their belt heading into this past season were Jac Caglianone, Brandon Neely, Ryan Slater, Blake Purnell and Cade Fisher. And Slater, Purnell and Fisher didn’t have the performances that they were hoping for. 

Because of this, O’Sullivan had to put faith in guys who were seeing college-level hitters for the first time in their careers. Guys like Frank Menendez, Liam Peterson, Jake Clemente, Luke McNellie and Pierce Coppola. 

In consequence, there were many midweek games lost that should’ve been won, and way too many games on the weekend with a high volume of opponent-runs allowed. 

Overall, Florida’s freshmen pitchers racked up 204.1 innings pitched and 149 earned runs, which resulted in an ERA of 6.57. 

That just isn’t going to cut it in the SEC. 

Though it wasn’t all bad. 

There were signs of development and maturity from them as they continued to be given the ball in the high-leverage situations. 

McNellie became the closer for a brief period to begin SEC play, Menendez was a lefty that the Gators went to when lefty batters were in the box, and Clemente became one of the first righties out of the bullpen in the postseason.

Additionally, the Gators put a ton of faith in redshirt sophomore Pierce Coppola (who only had one appearance before 2024 due to injury) to make eight starts over the final three months of the season. 

And what did he do in return? He provided the Gators with a career day on the mound and won an elimination game against Kentucky in the College World Series. 

In this game, he went a career-high five innings and struck out a career-high nine Wildcats on the way to his first win as a Gator. 

These are the signs of progress that you want to see throughout the early going of players’ careers.
If I were a betting man, I would say that the Gators' pitching will take a massive step forward as the growing pains the Gators endured in 2024 pay dividends in 2025.