When a baseball game ends 11-10, there has got to be a lot of energy involved - some good and some bad - depending on which team you're rooting for.
This was the case when the Gators took on Bethune-Cookman on Wednesday night. By the sixth inning, the Gators led 11-1, a commanding, if not, impossible lead. Starting pitcher, Kyle Mullaney had basically shut down the opposing hitters. That was the last part of Florida's easy ride to what seemed like it would be an overwhelmingly easy win.
Enter the bullpen. This is where the game got even more, well, exciting in a nerve wracking kind of way. The Gators were trying to use some of the players that don't always play and rest some of the others. With a good lead, that shouldn't have been a problem. But it turned out to be one.
By the 7th inning, things were going wrong for the Gator bullpen. By the eighth inning, when the Gators should have been breathing easy, Bethune-Cookman exploded. First they hit a homer literally out of the park and into the surrounding neighborhood. After another single by Bethune-Cookman, the Gators were able to end the inning with a double play.
But wait, there's more! After the first out in the 9th inning for Bethune-Cookman, there was a single. The next thing you know, the bases were loaded and Bethune-Cookman hammered a grand slam homer out of the park, while the Gators watched the numbers on the scoreboard get much closer together than the 10 point lead they had before. Fortunately, the inning -and the game - ended with two ground outs, keeping the Gators' win in tact.
This was nerve-wracking and exciting baseball all at once. It's not that I look forward to another game like this, but it is good to note that some of the best and most exciting games are the ones that have ups and downs like this one did.
