What a difference a week makes.
Last Monday, the Seminoles were coming off a debilitating sweep at the hands of an underwhelming Stanford team, dropping FSU down to 16th in RPI and almost guaranteeing they would not be a top-8 national seed.
Fast forward seven days, and the Noles are still unlikely to be a top-8 seed, but once again, their season outlook changed. Link Jarrett’s team won four straight games this week, a midweek victory over USF before sweeping Pitt over the weekend, to vault FSU up
to 7th in RPI on Monday and back in the driver’s seat of a top-4 seed in the ACC. Not only did Florida State go 4-0 on the week, but they did it on the strength of its offense. The Seminoles racked up 19 runs in their first two games played this week and combined for 26 hits across the final two contests. The strikeout numbers are down, the contact numbers are up, and the athleticism is on display, creating an identity that can help FSU scratch across enough runs and let the pitching staff do the rest of the work.
The key for the Noles going forward will be finding some level of consistency to end the season. Their last four series in ACC play go as follows: swept, sweep, swept, sweep. The batting order also continued to shift around, with Chase Williams missing the weekend series against Pitt with an injury.
But after a 4-0 week, the pendulum has swung back in favor of Florida State, and its identity for success is clear.
3 Up
No. 1: Contact
For most of the season, Florida State’s offense floundered because of its strikeout totals. Even in modern-day baseball, where punching out is tolerated more than in times past, the K totals sank the Seminole offense. Jarrett said multiple times that FSU’s quality of at-bat was not up to par, and that they are trying to do more to put the ball in play. For a few weeks, the strikeout numbers did not change, but finally, it appears the Noles have found a breakthrough.
At face value, the strikeout numbers are better than at any point in the year. Florida State struck out only six times in three games this week, and seven times in the other. No player had more than two punchouts in the game, and in the series finale, nobody struck out more than once. FSU’s lineup is finally adjusting to how they are being pitched and working together as a nine-man unit rather than as nine individual players.
Part of the decrease in the strikeouts is a change in philosophy, with Jarrett reverting to small ball and bunting more than at any point in his tenure. But that pressure on opposing defense has led to errors and more base runners. In the first game of the doubleheader on Saturday, Pitt committed three errors, and five of the 10 Florida State runs were unearned. Sure, that can be considered bad fielding, but the Noles deserve credit as well. They are leaning into their athleticism and forcing teams to get them out, rather than ending every at-bat with a slow walk back to the dugout. Of course, that does decrease the extra-base hit and power numbers from Florida State, but a high-contact team that runs the bases at a high level is the identity Jarrett believes gives his team the best chance to win, and it was proven on the field this weekend.
No. 2: Bullpen
Wes Mendes made the bullpen’s life a lot easier by throwing a complete game in the opening contest of the doubleheader on Saturday, but the unit still had a phenomenal week in the other three games. Across 13.2 innings of work this week, FSU’s ‘pen allowed one run, a solo homer, and only walked four batters.
After Cooper Whited fired four innings of one-run ball on Tuesday, the bullpen did not allow a run for the final five innings while punching out eight. Brodie Purcell struck out the side in his only frame of work over the week as he looked more like himself after a rough ending to the Stanford series. Cole Stokes and Cade O’Leary also did not allow a baserunner across 1.2 innings of work, another positive sign for Florida State as they need to get those two dynamic arms going before postseason play. Over the weekend, John Abraham closed out FSU’s 8-5 win to clinch the series against Pitt, going three innings and only allowing one run by giving up his first homer of the year, which, in the month of May, is pretty impressive. On Sunday, Bryson Moore only went 3.1 innings, and the Noles trailed 4-1 after three and a half innings. Needing length and zeros, Payton Manca and Chris Knier combined for five shutout innings, keeping Pitt’s offense at bay while the offense mounted a comeback.
Specifically on Knier, he has become a weapon out of the bullpen and FSU’s second-best reliever behind Abraham. In his last 12.2 innings of work, the righty has not allowed a run, while striking out 10. His four innings on Sunday were his longest outing of the season and saved the rest of FSU’s bullpen for a quick turnaround with a game on Tuesday. His use of multiple breaking balls, along with a more lively fastball and better command, has turned him into a long-relief weapon that teams have yet to figure out, and is making Florida State’s bullpen gulp a strength of the team.
No. 3: The Big Inning
Like everything else related to FSU this year, the Noles are streaky, and scoring runs is no different, making the big inning a massive part of their offensive output this week.
On Tuesday, coming off a sweep and a cross-country flight home, Florida State erupted for five runs in the first inning to take a stranglehold of its game against USF. The Noles brought all nine men to the plate, walked twice, and picked up three hits, all singles, as the quality of at-bat came through when they needed it. In the opening game of the doubleheader, Florida State scored 10 runs, but only scored in two innings, a four-run second and a six-run sixth. Stuetzer powered a two-run homer to cap off the frame in the second, and in the sixth, FSU bunted, stole home, and hit a sacrifice fly, as they rallied for six runs with only one extra-base hit in the frame, a double from Stuetzer. About two hours after that massive sixth, FSU scored five runs in the first two innings against the Panthers in game two of the doubleheader, and on Sunday, a three-run sixth lifted the Seminoles into the lead that they never relinquished to close out the series sweep.
In the 13 innings that Florida State scored a run this weekend, the Noles plated multiple runs in nine of them. On the one hand, scoring in 13 out of 36 innings is not nearly enough, but Jarrett’s team got its money’s worth when they did.
2 Down
No. 1: Bottom of the lineup
Carter McCulley, Cal Fisher, and Eli Putnam appeared in all four games this week and were the 7-8-9 in all three of FSU’s games over the weekend. Although McCulley posted a massive line on Sunday, the rest of the games left much to be desired from the trio. The three infielders did not record an extra-base hit in the first three games of the weekend, and only McCulley on Sunday had a game with more than one knock. The good news is that they all managed to get on base, and the three of them combined to score seven runs in three games against Pitt. But after a strong weekend from Putnam against Stanford, the first baseman went 2-15 this week. Fisher did not fare much better, going 1-12 in the four games, though he reached in all four. If FSU needs to rely on small ball to score runs, it will take a nine-man unit to put balls in play and pass the baton, needing the 7-8-9 to keep up with the top of the lineup.
No. 2: Bryson Moore
Moore, FSU’s Sunday starter, helped carry the Seminoles through the beginning part of the year, and his seven scoreless innings in the rubber match against Virginia might still be the most impressive outing of the year from a Nole arm. But since that point, he seems fatigued. In the last four weekends, he missed one start due to an injury and has not gone past four innings. On Sunday, Moore walked four and went just 3.1 innings before receiving a quick yank. The stuff is still there as he touched 95, but his efficiency is lacking and part of that could be Moore losing steam. He came to Tallahassee with 31.1 college innings pitched and is already at 48.2 innings at the beginning of May. Whether he can find some reprieve or push through the wall could be the difference between FSU making it out of a regional or going home early.
