Florida baseball coach Kevin O’Sullivan shook things up ahead of UF’s final March weekend series. O’Sullivan opted to have closer Brandon Neely take over the Friday night starter role from Cade Fisher, who moved back in the bullpen.

The move made sense. Fisher was holding an ERA of 8.13 over 27.2 innings as the Friday night starter, the “ace” spot in college baseball’s power conferences.

As Nick de la Torre of On3 noted, Florida has had trouble with falling behind early this season. Playing from behind limits the use of the closer. In this case, the closer happened to be one of the top arms on the team.

The baseball gods reminded Sully on Friday night that what makes sense on paper doesn’t always play out on the diamond.

Neely, making his first start since 2022, allowed 5 earned runs over 3.1 innings on 83 pitches. The Gators were down 5-2 entering the bottom of the 4th.

O’Sullivan turned to Fisher out of the pen, and Fish made the most of his opportunity. Fisher tossed 3.1 innings in relief, allowing 1 earned on 2 hits, walking 3 and striking out 5.

Stopping the bleeding proved important for the Gators. In thrilling fashion, Florida scored 5 runs over the final 2 innings to walk it off 7-6.

O’Sullivan beamed about Fisher’s role in winning the game.

“Really really proud of the way Cade Fisher pitched tonight,” O’Sullivan said after the game. “Without that performance, we probably wouldn’t have won the ballgame. He was just really, really good.”

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O’Sullivan not worried about Neely’s first-start struggles

The fact that Fisher had the better night than Neely is unlikely to lead to a switch back. O’Sullivan spoke positively of Neely’s start in spite of the final line.

“I thought the first couple of innings Brandon looked really, really sharp. I mean really sharp. The fourth inning, we walked a couple guys, hit a couple guys. I think there was an intentional walk there with Jordan, too, so technically we walked three in that one inning and hit two.”

While the 5 earned runs were not part of the plan, O’Sullivan explained that Neely was on a pitch count Friday night as he gets stretched back out to starting.

“”We talked about it before the game,” the Florida skipper said of the plan with Neely. “He said he felt like he could probably go 80 pitches or so and he went maybe 81 or so.

“There was a lot of misfortune in there, too. Mississippi State did a really good job of battling with two strikes. They got a couple hits in the 4-hole that weren’t necessarily hit very hard but they battled and they didn’t swing and miss very much.”

Last season, Fisher earned Freshman All-SEC and Perfect Game Freshman All-American recognition. He made 27 appearances on the season, mostly for the pen, posting a 3.10 ERA and 6-0 record.

If Fisher goes back to his old self, as Friday indicated with his impressive long-relief outing, the switch should give the Gators a big boost on the mound, as Neely will likely settle back into his starting role.