FSU Baseball Hosts FGCU for a Weekday Series

Florida State is coming off an extremely successful weekend in which they traveled to North Carolina State and took two of three games from the Wolfpack. Those two conference wins were extremely important as the Noles try and keep pace with an extremely hot Louisville who just swept Virginia at home. At 14-1 the Cards hold a three game over the Seminoles and it will be a battle to the end of the season as the two teams meet in the second to last series of the season.

The Eagles are a very average team who have struggled against elite competition this season. They are only 2-7 vs teams with a top 50 RPI and half of their 16 total wins have come against teams with an RPI of 200 or worse. The Gulf Coast offense is not all that bad, they hit .288 as a team have an on-base percentage of .370 which is 80th overall. Where they really struggle is the power department, the Noles DJ Stewart has as many homeruns (9) as the entire Eagles team.

As a team Florida State struck out 30 times last weekend at NCST, their opponents now have a K/9 approaching 10 which means you can expect at least one batter per inning to strikeout. I honestly have never seen a FSU team like this before. Their ability to walk and hit for power is what makes those gaudy strikeout numbers bearable.

The Florida State pitching staff is not considered an asset this season and finding quality innings the next two days could be rough. The good news is that the offense is averaging 10.4 runs per game on weekdays and the Noles haven't lost a game all season in which they score 10 or more. For the second Tuesday in a row FSU will look for the senior, Bryant Holtmann, to have another solid outing as he did against Florida last week. He pitched five innings of five hit ball allowing one run, striking out three and walking none.

Jordan Desguin has pitched great for FGCU, going 3-0 over his last four appearances with a 1.47 ERA including a complete-game victory over Miami on the road in his first start of the season. He allowed only one run on four hits, striking out five and walking one. Neither team has announced a starter for Wednesday's matchup.

Both today's game at 6PM and tomorrow's 4PM start can be viewed on NolesTV or you can follow along here with the play by play.

Go Noles!