Florida State baseball (30-14, 12-9 ACC) rebounded from a weekend sweep by a bad Stanford team to beat up on South Florida in a 9-1 win on Wednesday night. The Noles couldn’t afford another loss if they wanted to keep their hopes of hosting a regional alive, and it’s a similar sentiment going into a three-game ACC series against the Pittsburgh Panthers (28-15, 10-11 ACC.
Pittsburgh swept Virginia over the weekend before laying an egg in its midweek game against Kent State in a 13-5 loss. The Panthers have taken two of three from Stanford. They won a game against Georgia Tech and won two of three against Louisville on the road. However, they got swept by California at home and lost two of three against Virginia Tech.
Florida State desperately needs to win the series, and a sweep would be optimal.
The sweep over Virginia probably says more about Virginia since Florida State swept them, too. The Panthers are good offensively, batting .318 with 87 home runs and a .452 on-base percentage. They only strike out in 21.2 percent of their at-bats.
The pitching staff is where they struggle, with a staff ERA of 5.80, and opposing teams hit .274. They strike out less than one batter per inning and have allowed 52 home runs.
Defensively, they have a fielding percentage of .969, so not exactly elite.
Florida State is somewhat banged up offensively. Brayden Dowd and Chase Williams are not 100 percent. However, FSU will need some guys to continue to step up. FSU pitchers have faced better offenses, but Pitt will likely score a few runs. It’ll be up to the offense to keep pace against a mediocre staff. If they can do that, FSU should win this series, and they need to. If they lose this series or get swept, their chances of hosting a regional likely go up in smoke unless they win every game the rest of the season.
Friday's game will start at 6 p.m. and will air on the ACCNX channel.
Add us as a preferred source on Google