GAINESVILLE — His teammates jog past the blue batting cage that stands behind home plate.
They’re wearing white caps, orange tops and blue gym shorts, taking full advantage of the 70-degree January weather.
Off to the side, Alex Faedo watches.
“I didn’t do much this fall,” he says with a smile.
Soon, Faedo will join his teammates. But not yet. On a Friday afternoon, the junior pitcher is sitting in McKethan Stadium’s shaded first-base dugout, almost ready for his first official scrimmage in several months. After undergoing knee surgery in September, he has been kept off the baseball field while the rest of his Florida teammates practiced.
But now he’s healthy. And when the season begins, Faedo, a 6-foot-5 Tampa native, will be the Gators’ featured Friday-night starter.
He’ll be expected to lead UF’s young 18-player bullpen, 14 of which are underclassmen and 11 of which are freshmen. He’ll be the focus of most opposing team’s scouting reports in a highly competitive SEC. He’ll have to live with the constant scrutiny and expectations that come with being projected as a top-10 MLB Draft pick.
And yet, Faedo says, he feels no pressure,
“[I] may be pitching on a different day,” he says, “but it’s the same game.”
Last season, Faedo served as Florida’s Sunday afternoon starter behind aces Logan Shore, who was selected in the second round of the 2016 MLB Draft, and A.J. Puk, who was selected sixth overall.
This season, he’ll be expected to pick up where they left off. And coming off his best year of collegiate baseball, teammates and coaches expect him to have a breakout junior season.
“He’s just one of those rare guys,” said UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan, whose No. 2-ranked Gators open their season today with the first of a three-game series against William & Mary. “I have no worries at all about how he’s going to perform.”
A few hours later, Faedo backed up his coach’s words.
The right-hander looked sharp in Florida’s first official spring scrimmage, breezing through the first three batters. He forced two fly-outs and a strikeout to retire the side. He pitched two more innings, allowing two hits and striking out two more.
But unlike his eight-inning, 10-strikeout performance against Georgia Tech in the 2016 Gainesville Regionals, when he fist pumped after each strikeout, screamed after each out and clapped after each run scored, Faedo displayed none of the fiery competitiveness in UF’s first spring scrimmage that he so often showed on the mound last season.
No, he’ll save that for the regular season.
“He doesn’t hide his emotions when he’s pitching,” O’Sullivan said, laughing. “I think the other players really respect him, not just because of his ability, but because he is one of those guys that is out here having fun with his team.”
Faedo was like that even before college, UF catcher Mike Rivera said — polar opposite from the loose and relaxed college student he is off the field.
“When it came to baseball and competing,” said Rivera, who played little league with Faedo, “he was always one of the toughest.”
Faedo led UF with 133 strikeouts last year to go along with 13 wins, tied for the second-most victories in a single season in program history. He was named a second team All-American by Perfect Game and a third team All-American by the the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association.
But maybe his most important takeaway from last season, Faedo said, was learning behind Shore and Puk. He watched them navigate a difficult SEC schedule all while dealing with the lure of the MLB Draft in early June. He still talks to them both for advice.
“Losing them hurts,” Faedo said. “But I think we’re better — in a different way.”
O’Sullivan and the rest of the Gators hope they are, too. This season, UF will try to earn its third-straight College World Series berth and its sixth under O’Sullivan.
And, Faedo hopes, its first national championship.
“Going to Omaha is not just the goal,” Faedo said. “Winning it is the goal.”
