FSU baseball: Can Noles ride pitching for series win against Virginia Tech?

FSU baseball (4-5, 2-4 ACC) will take on the Virginia Tech Hokies (8-3, 4-2 ACC) in a weekend series beginning Friday at 4 p.m. ET in Blacksburg, Virginia.

The Noles come off an ACC series win over Virginia in their last outing, winning the first two games before giving the third game away with wasted opportunities.

Virginia Tech has won two ACC series in the young season, taking two of three games against Miami and North Carolina.

If the Noles look to pull off the series win, they’ll need to ride the arms of their pitchers with the offense struggling through the first nine games.

FSU pitching dominated Virginia last weekend, allowing four earned runs over a three-game series.

They’ll need them as Virginia Tech is batting .280 as a team with 14 home runs and an on-base percentage of .391. Their batters have only struck out 89 times in 368 at-bats.

For comparison’s sake, FSU batters are hitting .214 with six home runs and an on-base percentage of .363. Aside from the difference in power, FSU batters have struck out 117 times in 299 at-bats.

Virginia Tech pitchers have not been great through 11 games with an ERA of 4.04,132 strikeouts, 51 walk, and 98 hits allowed in 98 innings.

FSU pitching has an ERA of 3.18,109 strikeouts, 45 walks, and 62 hits allowed in 81 innings.

It looks as though it’ll be strength versus strength with FSU pitching against VT hitting. Can the FSU batters find a way to break through against VT pitchers?

The other factor in the series could be defensive fielding. The Hokies have committed 13 errors in 11 games, with FSU committing eight errors through nine games.

Mike Martin Jr. found a formula that worked for his pitchers last week going into the series against Virginia. Here’s to hoping that continues and the FSU batters can put it together against a vulnerable VT pitching staff.