If Florida State baseball and Virginia created a combined lineup between the two of them, at least the first four names on the batting order would be Cavaliers.
Yet, without their best player, down 1-0 in the weekend series and on the road against a top-10 opponent, the Noles scratched and clawed on Friday and Saturday to take a massive series win over Virginia. The now-No. 5 Seminoles are now a consensus top-five team and will head to Atlanta to face No. 3 Georgia Tech this weekend, with a chance
to secure their fifth-straight ACC series win and give them one of the best resumes in the country.
It does not take a baseball savant to see that Florida State is a work in progress, especially without Myles Bailey, yet somehow, they continue to find ways to win. On Tuesday, FSU beat Stetson, a team that made the NCAA tournament a season ago, for its first win on the road against the Hatters this decade. En route to another series win, Florida State silenced the UVA bats across the final 18 innings of the three-game set, and stole the weekend series from the Cavaliers to put a bow on a hard-fought 3-1 week.
Link Jarrett and Micah Posey deserve their flowers.
In the offseason and throughout the year, Jarrett told the local media that this team would be carried by its experienced arms, and that is exactly what has happened. On the mound, FSU’s weekend rotation gives the Noles a chance to win every time out, and the bullpen appears to be the Noles’ best since Jarrett arrived with a combination of stuff and veteran moxie. As a staff, Florida State is one of only two teams in the ACC with an ERA under 4 (3.90), and the Seminoles hold the lowest opposing batting average in the conference (.213). Jarrett and Posey identified their weakness in the offseason, addressed it, and are reaping the rewards.
At the plate and in the field, Florida State is going through obvious learning curves, but Jarrett never let go of the rope, and Saturday showed the promise of FSU’s lineup. The head coach continued to believe in Cal Fisher, and the junior rewarded that faith with a home run on Saturday, his first of the year, while picking up a knock in three of the four games this week. Hunter Carns also homered this week and seems to be finding his stride, coinciding with Jarrett saying last week that the catcher made a technical tweak to his swing timing.
Whether it is an emotional button or a mechanical fix, Jarrett has his thumb on this team’s button and knows which ones to push at the right time.
Again, it is difficult to say the Seminoles are bona fide national title contenders, let alone locks for Omaha, given the talent the top teams in the country boast and the valleys the lineup goes through from time to time. However, there is an inevitability around this roster and Jarrett that no matter what happens, they will figure it out and find a way.
Three up
No. 1: Starting pitching
Take out Virginia’s four-run fourth on Thursday, and Florida State’s weekend rotation combined for 16 innings of two-run baseball against one of the best lineups in the country.
Wes Mendes was roughed up in that frame, which proved to be the difference in the game, but he only allowed two hits across his other four innings of work while looking like his usual self. Throughout the course of a season, bad innings happen, and the rest of his outing made the bad frame seem like the exception, not the rule.
A day later, Trey Beard battled through 5.0 innings, allowing a baserunner in every inning, yet only gave up two runs and struck out seven. He left with the lead and put John Abraham in a position to finish the game while preserving the FSU bullpen.
However, the story of the weekend was Bryson Moore, a UVA transfer, who dominated his revenge game to the tune of seven shutout innings while retiring the final 17 batters he faced. The junior lived off his fastball, which the Cavaliers rarely picked up, but mixed in his off-speed pitches at the perfect time to keep them off balance.
The formula for the Seminoles is clear moving forward: keep the opposition to four runs or fewer and hope the offense can scratch enough runs. In college baseball, that recipe rarely works, but with this trio, Florida State is in a better position than most.
No. 2: Bullpen
To execute the formula for success, getting strong outings from the bullpen to piggyback the starting pitching is necessary.
They have been up to the task.
On Tuesday, after another impressive showing from Cooper Whited, who will be a factor down the stretch in the ‘pen when FSU stops playing midweeks, Brodie Purcell, Chris Knier, John Abraham, and Gabe Nard, FSU’s four best relievers, combined for five innings with one unearned run allowed to lock down the win over Stetson.
In the series opener, Knier received the call out of the bullpen and went three scoreless innings to keep the Noles in the game and let Jarrett save his best arms for the rest of the weekend. Knier’s length paid off on Friday as Abraham came in for Beard in the sixth and turned in his longest outing of the season, four innings on 69 pitches, to help even the series at a game apiece. The Tampa native made it interesting by allowing baserunners in the eighth and ninth, but the rest of the conference is waking up to the fact that he is the best reliever in the ACC.
Purcell did not look as sharp on Saturday as he did on Tuesday, when he went two innings while striking out four, but Moore’s length rendered his performance moot. Nard came in for the ninth and closed out the series-clinching win, a positive sight to see the Duke transfer pitch twice this week and control the game by generating weak contact.
Last week, Florida State’s bullpen went 14 innings, not allowing an earned run in three of its four games and giving up four runs the whole week. Sometimes, the numbers speak for themselves.
No. 3: Timely at-bats
While the offense is not where it needs to be, and may never reach the point where fans and the coaching staff are satisfied, Florida State provided timely offense in all of its games to close out a winning week.
Against Stetson, with the score tied at two heading into the sixth, Noah Sheffield broke the deadlock with a two-run homer to left, eventually becoming the game-winning run. That at-bat seemed to spark his offense as the sophomore reached base in every game this weekend, including picking up a double on Thursday and Friday.
In the series opener, after UVA went up 4-0 in the fourth, the Nole offense answered back with three in the top of the fifth, a needed response after it seemed that the game could get away from them. A day later, after UVA scored in the fifth to make it a 3-1, Carns clobbered a home run to dead center in the top of the sixth to push FSU out in front by an insurmountable four-run cushion.
In the rubber match, Fisher drove his first homer of the year in the second inning, a two-run blast, before Carns’ RBI double in the third took the game by the scruff of the neck and allowed Moore to pitch freely without worrying about being perfect.
Consistent offense will be hard to find this season, but timely offense may be enough for the Seminoles with the type of pitching they have on the mound.
Three down
No. 1: Quality of at-bat
Even though I spoke positively about the offense, there are still far too many negatives and empty at-bats that anyone can feel comfortable with.
The largest issue I found with the quality of at-bats was how they started. Out of 139 at-bats this week, 28 of them had an FSU hitter in an 0-2 count, good for 20%. Not only are the at-bats from the offense usually unproductive, but they also do not wear down the opposing arm or give the rest of the team a look at his stuff. In only one game this week did the Seminoles strike out fewer than 10 times, and that was when they punched out nine times in the series finale on Saturday. While strikeouts are part of the game, empty at-bats could be the difference between this team reaching its potential or falling short.
No. 2: Defense
Like the number of strikeouts, even if the error numbers are slightly down, the quality of defense does not inspire confidence. On Tuesday, FSU’s ghastly bunt defense put two runners in scoring position with nobody out in the bottom of the first before Whited worked out of the jam. Later in the game, an unearned run in the seventh gave the Hatters life before the bullpen closed out the rest of the contest. Against Virginia, Florida State was the better defensive team throughout the weekend, but there were still adventures in the field, especially with Chase Williams, which made the easy look hard and the hard appear almost impossible. It seems Jarrett has his team set in the field, with Eli Putnam at first base and Carter McCulley at short, so hopefully the increased rep count will lead to fewer mistakes.
No. 3: Extra-base hits
Although most of the knocks I mentioned earlier were extra-base hits, the Seminoles still lack a punch of power in their lineup with Bailey gone. The Seminoles recorded three or more extra-base hits in only one game this week, and did not homer in Thursday’s loss. Jarrett talks all the time about the need for XBH to provide instant offense, and especially for a team that struggles to score runs, getting more power from the entire lineup will be critical for manufacturing offense.
