The Seminoles defeated the Black Bears 9-1, this Sunday afternoon and completed the series sweep of Maine. Florida State will be back in action on Tuesday in Jacksonville at 5 pm. Coach Mike Martin is now only nine victories away from 2,000 career wins.

Three Up:

• Freshman Robby Martin continued to drive runners home establishing himself as the Seminoles’ 5th hitter in the lineup. In the 7th inning of the game on Sunday, Martin hit a three-run double. Martin finished the series with a team-high .438 batting average (7-for-16) and nine runs batted in during the Opening Weekend.
• Florida State’s pitchers combined for an impressive performance this afternoon. Sophomore Shane Drohan had his first career start allowing one hit and striking out seven in 3.0 innings. FSU’s relief pitchers Antonio Velez, Jack Anderson and J.C. Flowers combined to allow four hits, one run and strike out seven over the final six innings. The pitchers combined for a season high 14 strikeouts.
• In the post-game press conference, Coach Martin said he was pleased with how well the Seminoles were doing at-bat. FSU hitters had a positive BB/K ratio striking out only six times while drawing nine walks.

Three Down:

• Reese Albert left Sunday’s game against Maine during the second inning shortly after hurting his shoulder at-bat. Just before that at bat Albert ran into the center field wall while making an excellent catch. After the game, Coach Martin said that Albert is expected to be fine. J.C. Flowers replaced him at center.
• Coach Mike Martin expressed that he didn’t like lack of competitive outs the Seminoles gave away to Maine as FSU put the ball in the air too much. Fly outs are less likely to produce errors and productive outs, which are usually key in big innings. Martin said, “We gave them (Maine) easy outs, you like to feel like you’ve gotten good swings and made infielders make big plays or outfielders make big plays.” He noted that this isn’t unusual when a team plays this many games over a three-day stretch.
• Despite the fact that 9 players plated runs, 7 of the runs came during the 7th inning after the Seminoles had zero hits for five straight innings. Ultimately the number of runs scored during a game is all that matter but it’s always nice to see a more consistent distribution as that usually means a more consistent form of scoring runs.