FSU baseball: 3 takeaways from getting swept by Pittsburgh

FSU baseball has a lot to fix in a hurry after getting swept by the Pittsburgh Panthers over the weekend.

I’m not sure I’ve seen an FSU baseball team look worse over a three-game stretch. The Noles couldn’t hit a sack of balls if you pitched them all at one time, the defense continues to commit errors, and the starting pitching has a lot of work to do.

There are a lot of glaring issues with this team. I knew they were there, because I told you weeks ago, but I had no idea it could be this bad.

Three Takeaways

• FSU allowed Pittsburgh to score first in every game of the series
• FSU batters have no confidence at the plate
• FSU pitchers are not pitching smart

Listen, FSU struggled to put the ball in-play against North Florida most nearly half of their opening series. The offense is struggling, and giving up runs in the runs early in the game puts added pressure on those guys. That’s one thing that needs fixing.

FSU batters struck out 13, 16, and 12 times in the three-game series. That means 41 of 93 outs (44 percent) were strikeouts. The guys watched fastballs for strike one and then would swing at balls outside the strike zone. When they got behind in the count, they had not shot of producing offense. At least 10 of those strikeouts came from watching strike three right down the middle.

FSU pitchers issued 19 walks in the series. They would get behind in the count and walk a batter or get ahead in the count and throw a 1-2 pitch right down the middle and give up a hit.

I’ll likely write more about the hitting and pitching Tuesday and an approach to fix the issues. FSU baseball returns to action Tuesday, hosting Mercer at 6 p.m. The game will air on the ESPN3 app.