FSU baseball: Noles defeat Duke to avoid series sweep

FSU baseball avoided getting swept in its first ACC conference weekend by defeating Duke 10-2 Sunday afternoon.

FSU baseball (10-5, 1-2 ACC) saw Mike Martin Jr. get his first ACC conference victory Sunday afternoon with a 10-2 win over Duke (12-3, 2-1 ACC) to avoid the series sweep.

FSU’s offense was stagnant the first two games of the series with its fielding woes continuing to plague them as they have all season in losses of 2-1 and 4-3.

The offense amassed one hit in game one while striking out 17 times. FSU pitching wasn’t the problem as CJ Van Eyk went six innings, allowing one earned run on three hits with six strikeouts and two walks. The FSU bullpen was effective, allowing no hits on three strikeouts and two walks and one unearned run.

The second game saw the FSU offense come alive with eight hits but stranded 15 runners on base, which ultimately cost them. FSU batters struck out 13 times, with six of them looking at the third strike.

Shane Drohan was the losing pitcher, going 5.1 innings with six strikeouts and two walks while giving up four earned runs on five hits. Antonio Velez was virtually flawless out of the bullpen, giving up no runs on two hits with two strikes and no walks.

FSU baseball finally saw its offense come together in a big way in the final game. They had 13 hits with three of those being home runs but still left  Elijah Cabell hit his second grand slam of the season to help seal the victory at the top of the eighth inning. Logan Lacey went 3-5 with a home run and two runs scored.

Cabell went 2-5 with five RBI on the day but struck out the other three at-bats. He’s already matched his season total for home runs from last year with seven in just 15 games. The FSU pitching department was Johnny Wholestaff on Sunday, with three different pitchers taking the mound.

It’s the usual suspects for this FSU baseball team. The pitching is good enough to win against good opponents, but the defense is terrible, and the offense is too sporadic to be consistent against good ball clubs.

The Noles will travel to Gainesville Tuesday to see if they can break their 11 game losing streak to the rival Gators with first pitch set for 6:30 p.m. ET.