FSU Baseball Recap: Noles Drop Midweek Road Games to UF, FGCU
By Ty Ragans
FSU baseball faced their best competition to date on a road trip to Florida and Florida Gulf Coast, the Noles offense struggled in two close losses.
FSU baseball entered their spring break road trip with a brand new number one ranking from d1baseball.com. Unfortunately the Noles didn’t live up to that billing in the first two games of the trek.
The pitching and defense was there for FSU in both games but the offense was severely lacking. The Noles lost to UF by a score of 1-0 on Tuesday and to FGCU by a score of 5-2 on Wednesday.
Florida Recap
McKethan stadium has been a nightmare for FSU baseball lately. Tuesday’s 1-0 loss marked the third straight time FSU has been shut out by UF in Gainesville.
The Noles have gone 31 consecutive innings without scoring a run against the Gators. In those 31 innings, FSU batters have struck out a total of 36 times.
To say that FSU struggled at the plate on Tuesday would be an understatement. UF used four different freshman pitchers to combine for the shutout and hold FSU to just four hits and no walks. Two of FSU’s hits didn’t leave the infield.
It wasn’t all bad for FSU; Andrew Karp dominated on the mound just as he has all season. Everything was working for Karp, he was locating his fastball, getting his breaking pitch over for strikes and his changeup was devastating.
Bad luck got Karp in the seventh inning when UF accidentally got a bloop single via the check-swing, plating the runner from second. Karp’s final line read 7 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 11 K. The 11 strike outs were a new career high for Karp. Karp continues to make his case for a spot in the weekend starting rotation.
While this was a frustrating loss for FSU baseball, there’s no need to panic. The top dogs in FSU’s lineup are yet to get into a groove this season and FSU was without what could be two of their best hitters in Jackson Lueck and Drew Mendoza.
FSU will still get two more cracks at the Gators in the regular season, luckily neither of those games will be played in Gainesville.
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Florida Gulf Coast
It looked like the Noles had broken out of their slump early against FGCU when they were able to plate two runs in the top of the first on a Cal Raleigh single. Unfortunately it was fool’s gold as those two runs would be FSU’s only runs of the game. The lead didn’t last long as FGCU scored three runs of their own in the third, chasing FSU starter Ed Voyles after recording just one out in the process.
FSU would again use a plethora of relievers. Will Zirzow and Jim Voyles combined to get FSU through the 6th inning. Alec Byrd had a nice relief appearance striking out all three batters he faced in the seventh. Grant Stewart and Chase Haney combined to finish up the eighth inning for FSU.
FSU was back to their walking ways on Wednesday night against FGCU after failing to earn a walk on Tuesday. The Noles were able to earn nine walks on Wednesday but it didn’t translate to runs, mostly due to FSU stranding fifteen runners on base.
The inability to capitalize on a high number of base runners led to a 5-2 loss on the night.
It wasn’t a banner performance in the mid-week from FSU but the good thing about baseball is there’s always another chance around the corner. The Noles will be at Virginia Tech for an ACC matchup this weekend. Check in on Friday for our series preview.