FSU baseball: Takeaways from ‘Noles series win over Wake Forest

FSU baseball (10-5, 2-1 ACC) got off to a good start in conference play with an opening series win over a good Wake Forest team.

The Noles lost Friday’s game 9-3 after leading 2-0 through the first four innings. Saturday’s game was postponed, and the two teams played a doubleheader in which the Noles swept 5-1 and 3-2.

Pitching Takeaways

The starting pitching was good enough to win all three games, but the bullpen failed to pick up Parker Messick in the opening game. Messick didn’t have his best stuff for the second consecutive outing, getting behind in the count more times than usual and issuing three walks in five innings.

However, he had 11 strikeouts and only allowed four hits. Bryce Hubbart didn’t have his best stuff Sunday afternoon but gutted it through 5.2 innings. He only allowed one hit but issued five walks and had nine strikeouts. Ross Dunn might have had the most impressive outing after a shaky start. He went seven innings and only allowed one hit, three walks, and had 14 strikeouts. Sometimes I think this group tries to strike every batter out instead of just pitching, which exaggerates their pitch count. They all issued too many walks and got behind batters too often. Messick got in trouble by throwing pitches that got too much of the plate when he was in an advantageous position like a count of 1-2. Wake Forest scored at least two runs off hits that came with a 1-2 count. It’s something I saw from Hubbart as well, but Wake Forest batters were not able to capitalize off of his mistakes. I’m pointing this out now because they can’t afford to keep doing this, especially if they make it to the postseason.

Offensive Takeaways

The batters had a poor performance in Friday’s contest even though they led 2-0 after four innings. They struck out 12 times and left 12 runners on base. Guys were looking to pull outside pitches and failed to take advantage of scoring opportunities. However, they took a much better approach in the double-header, and it paid off. They had 21 hits in the doubleheader with four walks and 22 strikeouts. Their approach to hitting the ball up the middle and the opposite field was evident and had bad luck a couple of times as would-be base hits up the middle resulted in double plays. Jaime Ferrer had a great series.

Defensively

The Noles were solid and only committed one error in three games.

Overall Thoughts

Wake Forest is a good hitting club and the FSU starting pitching kept them in check even though they were not as sharp as usual. The bullpen (Jonah Scolaro and David Hare) came through in the double header and didn’t allow any runs in 5.1 innings. Hopefully, those appearances will give them and the coaches confidence in the bullpen. If the offense can continue to put the ball in play like Sunday?

They can beat a lot of teams, but the starting pitching needs to cut down on the walks and pitching from behind in the count. FSU baseball will travel to Gainesville Tuesday evening to take on the rival Florida Gators at 6 p.m. ET.