{"id":151839,"date":"2026-02-11T17:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T17:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/151839\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T17:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T17:48:09","slug":"florida-baseball-catchers-pitchers-ready-for-opening-day-wruf-98-1-fm-850-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/151839\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Baseball Catchers, Pitchers Ready for Opening Day – WRUF 98.1 FM | 850 AM"},"content":{"rendered":"

With coach Kevin O\u2019Sullivan having addressed the Gators\u2019 largest controversy, Florida baseball\u2019s clubhouse\u2019s tone has simmered into a quiet confidence. Recruits like Ethan Suroweic slotted into the Gators lineup without much fanfare. Aiden King and Liam Peterson continue to collect preseason awards. And, the Gators\u2019 first opponent provides an opportunity to show the conference why O\u2019Sullivan believes, \u201c\u2018We are Florida still.\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

AUB, a non-conference mid-major, seems to be Florida\u2019s unfortunate punching bag before SEC play heats up. The Gators have about a month to ready themselves for conference foes, starting in March. Before then, they will face No. 25 Miami and No. 12 Florida State.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Buried in the psyche of Florida\u2019s pitching and catching staffs lies a don\u2019t-you-dare-doubt-us attitude and a prove-it mentality for the 2026 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Catchers bond as brothers \u00a0<\/p>\n

Any position battles can cause divisions, but Florida\u2019s catchers aren\u2019t letting the competition disrupt their bond. Karson Bowen, a transfer from TCU, is projected to start for the Gators as Baseball America\u2019s No. 79 impact transfer. He batted .333 with the Horned Frogs, slugging .425.\u00a0<\/p>\n

AJ Malzone and Cole Stanford will back up Bowen. The three have bonded over being an unofficial Floridian. Malzone, a junior from Wabash Valley College, had never seen Florida\u2019s mascot in the wild before. He grew up near Chicago, where the gator population i was contained in zoos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when I got here [to Florida], I saw a couple, and I was taking pictures and everything. I was like, \u2018This is so cool. I felt like a little kid,\u201d Malzone said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But one day, after Malzone had transferred in July to Florida, a handful of Malzone\u2019s friends took him wakeboarding on a lake near Gainesville. Terrified, Malzone asked if there would be gators in the water, but they reassured him there were none. Little did he know that any bodies of water within the state\u2019s borders run the risk of reptilians. Malzone avoided the gators that day, but has encountered a few since then.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Luckily for Malzone, the only \u201cgators\u201d at Condron Family Ballpark will be the Gators on the diamond \u2013 and the occasional Albert appearance \u2013 and the catching group has little to fear. Frequently dining together, Malzone referred to Bowen and Stanford as his \u201cbrothers,\u201d learning how to adapt to SEC baseball together and pushing each other to be great.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis catching group, out of any catching group throughout my career, has been the best catching group I\u2019ve been with,\u201d Malzone said. \u201cOur connection and bond isn\u2019t like most catching groups. We compete at a high level together, and everyone\u2019s trying to earn a spot, but at the same time, we\u2019re each other\u2019s biggest fans.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pitching depth in the rotation and bullpen<\/p>\n

While Florida\u2019s starting rotation has attracted most of the attention, Florida\u2019s next step will be deciding on a closer. Jake Clemente took over the role last season midseason, posting a team-low 1.33 ERA<\/a> and .173 batting average against in his final 27 innings. Swept up by the Miami Marlins in the seventh round of last year\u2019s MLB draft, the Gators now have to fill the vacant spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Peterson and King slot firmly in the 1-2 spots, and Florida will test where Luke McNellie fits best. He\u2019s available as a midweek option, but he could also serve in the bullpen as an arm to eat up innings in case either Peterson or King doesn\u2019t have a good start.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bullpen arm Matthew Jenkins, who made nine appearances as a sophomore for the Gators last season, was confident in the Gators\u2019 chances in the SEC from his observations around Florida\u2019s pitchers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of guys that throw really hard, throw a lot of strikes, and we have a lot of guys that can come in and spin the ball really well,\u201d Jenkins said. \u201cI\u2019m really excited to see how this year turns out. We got a lot of depth on the mound, a lot of depth in all the positions as well. As long as we stay healthy, we\u2019re going to make a deep run.\u201d<\/p>\n

Category: Baseball<\/a>, College Baseball<\/a>, Feature Sports News<\/a>, Gators Baseball<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With coach Kevin O\u2019Sullivan having addressed the Gators\u2019 largest controversy, Florida baseball\u2019s clubhouse\u2019s tone has simmered into a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[73262,28,30,29,19669,73263,40898,5547,20074,71348],"class_list":["post-151839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-aiden-king","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-gators-baseball","tag-jake-clemente","tag-karson-bowen","tag-kevin-osullivan","tag-liam-peterson","tag-opening-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}