FSU baseball: Noles take on James Madison in 2022 season opener

FSU baseball will take on James Madison in their 2022 season opener Friday night. The Noles come into the 2022 season off a (31-24, 20-16 ACC) campaign that saw them eliminated in the third game of the Oxford Regional.

FSU’s pitching was their strongest asset, and that will continue in 2022 with several arms that will likely play professional baseball.

As we’ve discussed, FSU’s defense and hitting will be the key to how far they can go in 2022. Both phases were liabilities last year, striking out 32 percent of the time and averaging over an error per game. James Madison comes into the season off of an (11-17, 6-9 CAA).

They hit .288 as a team with an on-base percentage of .370 while striking out 22 percent of their at-bats.

One player to note is Chase DeLauter, who is on the preseason Golden Spikes Award Watch List. He’s on five different Preseason All-American teams. Defensively, they had a .954 field percentage (49 errors in 38 games). However, their pitching may have been worse as they had a team ERA of 6.38 and nearly had a 1:1 strikeout to walk ratio.

Opposing teams batted. 281 against them, while they allowed 32 home runs in 38 games. FSU will have Parker Messick, Bryce Hubbart, Ross Dunn as their starters for the weekend.

FSU will be without offensive starters Tyler Martin (DH) and Jordan Carrion (SS), but I’ll be looking to see which players emerge offensively.

The loss of Matheu Nelson, Elijah Cabell, and Robby Martin was a large percentage of their offensive production last season. Logan Lacey, Miami transfer Alex Toral, Reese Albert, Brett Roberts, Treyton Rank, James Tibbs, and Jaime Ferrer are names to look out for hitting-wise.

Friday’s game will begin at 6 p.m. ET and air on the ACCNX channel.