3 Up/3 Down: FSU’s slide continues

Florida State (12-12, 3-6) lost a midweek game to Florida 9-5 and were swept on the road at Virginia of scores of 3-2, 12-4 and 15-4. FSU was actually competitive in half of those games but mistakes all over the field opened the flood gates with no way to shut them.

3 Up

• Jackson Baumeister has been up and down this season but against UVA he was up. He was about the only pitcher FSU had this week that could throw with any kind of confidence. Baumeister threw five innings of five hit ball walking just win and giving up a single run. He did this without much in the way of run support against one of the better offenses in the country. Baumeister has shown he has top flight stuff but he needs to improve on his consistency but that’s about what you’d expect of a sophomore.
• Cam Smith had, maybe, his best week as a Seminole going 6-16 with a double, home run, two walks and just one strike out. Cam had a hit in almost every game this week and the lack of strike outs suggest a player that is beginning to click. As FSU’s highest rated recruit fans expect a lot from Cam and early in the season he showed that ability. However, as the pitching ratcheted up Cam begin to struggle to adjust but maybe he’s finding that stride.
• FSU certainly could have won at least two of their games this week. Against Florida FSU was up 5-4 going into the eighth and against UVA was up 2-1 in the ninth inning of the Friday game and 4-3 going into the seventh inning of the Saturday game. Obviously they didn’t win those games but they at least put themselves in a position to have a shot, which is both encouraging and discouraging.

3 Down

• FSU threw away too many games this week. The most egregious was the Friday night game against UVA. Florida State took a 2-1 lead in the ninth on a walk, double and error and Connor Whittaker entered the game. The sophomore started the inning exactly how you’d want with a strike out and a fly out but walked the after being up in the count 1-2. The next batter singled to right field and Jaimie Ferrer buried the ball in the dirt on the throw to second allowing the runner to move up to third. On a 0-1 pitch to the next batter Whittaker’s pitch hit in front of the plate and bounced away from McWire Holbrook allowing UVA to tie the game. The next inning saw FSU in a similar position with a runner on first and two outs. A single moved the runner up to second, who then scored on an error by Jordan Carrion as the ball snuck under his glove into centerfield.
• Florida State’s pitching is abysmal right now. FSU gave up double digit hits in every game this week to go along with the 39 runs it also surrendered and they only had two errors on the week. They also gave up 30 walks and hit seven batters and threw in eight wild pitches. FSU is now giving up 5.5 walks per nine innings pitched on the year and has a WHIP of 1.73. Both of those stats will be in the bottom third of college baseball.
• At the plate FSU is hitting well for average but it’s not always translating into runs. The ‘Noles put up runs of 5, 2, 4 and 4 on the week, which is not very impressive to say the least. The problem seems to be that FSU still strikes out too much (36 times on the week to 33 hits) and doesn’t hit for much power. Just over 25% of FSU hits went for extra bases this week. As a comparison UF and UVA had just over 33% of their hits go for extra bases. They also accumulated more walks and had far fewer strike outs (22 over three games). This FSU offense, which is consistent and tends to score first, would be fine if the team could pitch and play defense but it can’t and the offense squanders too many opportunities with strike outs.

Up next: FSU heads to Jacksonville to take on Florida Tuesday at 7:00