FSU Baseball: Fans react to Tyler Holton missing rest of season
By Kelvin Hunt
FSU baseball took a major hit to its chance of bringing Mike Martin his first national championship.
FSU baseball seems to have the same luck as FSU football last season. The same way the Noles lost Deondre Francois in the first game, the baseball team lost its ace pitcher Tyler Holton due to injury.
Holton is out for the season after tearing his UCL and had Tommy John surgery Thursday morning.
He went 4.2 innings against Xavier in the season opener Friday before leaving the game with tightness in his throwing arm.
Holton started 18 games last season going 10-3 with a 2.34 ERA and had 144 strikeouts in 119 innings.
More horrible injury news: @FSUBaseball LHP and All-American Tyler Holton will have surgery tomorrow morning to repair a torn UCL. Such horrible news for the #Noles. Ugh. #MLBDraft
— Kendall Rogers (@KendallRogers) February 21, 2018
FSU baseball fans felt as though they got stabbed in the heart with the news of losing Holton for the season.
Twitter Reaction
Me when I found out the Tyler Holton news... pic.twitter.com/N5w2BIF90y
— Rowdy Roddy Piper (@PrezCueball) February 21, 2018
Lost Tyler Holton on opening day pic.twitter.com/blM3Jhn7cg
— Slowdell Haggins 🎒 (@CSteph90) February 21, 2018
Tyler Holton will miss the remainder of the season with an injury 😭
— Joshua G. Foxworth (@Jawbo__1k) February 22, 2018
Oh man, just saw the Tyler Holton news, that sucks! Was really looking forward to him on the mound, at 1st and at the plate 👎
— Bruh (@FSUnoleSC) February 21, 2018
Terrible news for Tyler Holton and for #FSU Baseball. No doubt in my mind though that this team will bounce back and be just fine. Their pitching staff depth is incredible and this team is real special.
— Haylee Blitch (@hayleeblitch) February 21, 2018
Big time thoughts and prayers to Tyler Holton. He will conquer the rehab after surgery and come back even stronger. Holton is a born winner, and this will end up being a minor set back. pic.twitter.com/XLkIlOVmdO
— Next Level Baseball (@nextlevelbb) February 21, 2018
Thoughts
Listen, there’s no way to sugar coat the news and what it means to this team. Starting pitching was one of the strengths of the team largely based on what Holton brought to the table.
The Noles will likely go with Cole Sands and Drew Parrish to step up in the rotation. Sands was 6-4 with a 5.40 ERA last season with 72 strikeouts in 82 innings.
Parrish was 6-3 with 93 strikeouts in 91.2 innings last season. FSU had one of the best offenses in the nation last season but struggled on defense and still left too many runners on base.
Next: 3 Things Baseball Needs To Improve To Win Big In 2018
They’ll need to improve those two latter categories to try and offset the loss of Holton if they want to make a serious push to get back to the College World Series.