Florida State baseball fans are not used to the team losing back-to-back games in the second week of the season, but that’s what happened last weekend when the Noles traveled to Texas. FSU looked impressive against Michigan, but allowed No. 9 Auburn to come from behind to lose its first game of the season, and got dominated by Nebraska in the third game.
The offense has been nonexistent over the last 17 innings, only scoring two runs with double-digit strikeouts.  FSU pitching gets a little bit of a pass because its projected starting rotation has been thrown off due to Trey Beard’s illness on opening weekend.
He made his debut in relief in the Auburn game, and I think he’ll be fine once he gets back to 100 percent. The back-to-back losses rattled some of the casual fans in the fanbase, and FSU will look for offensive answers as they are down two starters in Brody DeLamielleure and Jace Estes.
FSU will host the North Florida Ospreys (5-3) on Wednesday at 5 p.m. It’s a team that hits .280 overall, with one guy who has four home runs (Matthew Farner). One other player has two, and the rest have one or no home runs. They have struck out in 27 percent of their at-bats through eight games and have a .960 field percentage defensively. Pitching-wise, they have a 3.84 ERA, and opposing batters are hitting .230.
It’s not clear who will start this game pitching for FSU since Payton Manca started the Sunday game against Nebraska. That part doesn’t concern me as much as the FSU offense. That’s what I’ll be looking at with a close eye on Wednesday night. They must have better approaches and cutdown on the strikeouts. If they don’t look good tonight, that’ll only cause more of an uproar from the fanbase.
The game will air on the ACCNX channel.