FSU baseball: Noles travel for pivotal series against Notre Dame

FSU baseball (23-16, 15-12 ACC) will take on ACC Atlantic leader Notre Dame (24-8, 21-8 ACC) in a three-game series this weekend.

Notre Dame batters are hitting .276 with an on-base percentage of .379 and have slugged 40 home runs, four triples, and 59 doubles.

Notre Dame pitchers will enter the contest with a 4.06 ERA, with opposing teams batting .242, with 260 strikeouts and 143 walks in 288 innings. They have allowed 29 home runs.

Defensively, Notre Dame has 18 errors in 32 games for a fielding percentage of .985.

FSU pitchers enter the contest with a 3.20 ERA, with opposing teams batting .219, with 466 strikeouts and 134 walks in 354.1 innings.

FSU batters are hitting .243 with an on-base percentage of .362 and have 61 home runs, three triples, and 68 doubles.

Defensively, FSU has 47 errors in 39 games for a fielding percentage of .968.

FSU Keys To Victory

The first thing that stands out to me is how good Notre Dame is defensively. They won’t beat themselves, and their pitchers don’t issue many walks, letting their defense work for them.

Notre Dame pitchers aren’t overpowering, as they don’t even average a strikeout per inning. However, they are subject to give up the home run since they’re around the plate quite a bit.

The first four Notre Dame batters all have an on-base percentage over .400. FSU pitchers will need to keep that part of the order in check and avoid the one true power hitter they have in Niko Kavadas who leads the team with 15 home runs.

Notre Dame can be aggressive on the base paths (54 of 70 stolen base attempts), interestingly enough, Kavadas is second on the team with seven stolen bases. However, Matheu Nelson may negate that since he’s throwing out runners at over a 50 percent clip.

FSU pitchers had 44 strikeouts and two walks in the three-game series against Troy last week. They have been superb for most of the year, and the biggest question mark is the FSU offense.

Matheu Nelson has become arguably the best player in college baseball. However, the Noles need Robby Martin to break out of his 0-11 slump from last week. Logan Lacey needs to continue to hit the ball well. Elijah Cabell needs to continue with how he’s been hitting the ball.

Most of all, the Noles need the bottom of the lineup to be more productive against a team like Notre Dame. They also can’t kick the ball around on defense or make bone-headed mistakes running the bases.

It’s hard to beat good teams making a lot of errors and mental mistakes, and they’ll need to put it all together over the next three games to be successful.

The first pitch will take place at 6 p.m. ET and will air on the ACC Network.