Florida State was pushed to the brink on Sunday night, trailing by one run in the eighth inning before overcoming the deficit to eliminate Northern Illinois in a 7-4 win.
Florida State will face St. John’s for the chance to avenge a previous loss, but will need to win two games to advance to Super Regionals. One of the biggest questions going into Monday is who’s available for Florida State to pitch?
The good news is Florida State only used three pitchers in the 10-inning game, which means a couple of arms got another day of rest that could help the Noles on Monday.
It’ll be another Johnny Wholestaff game, but here are some names I’d expect to see in game one. Payton Manca, Kevin Mebil, John Abraham, Cole Stokes.
🗣️ We'll see you tomorrow afternoon at Howser. pic.twitter.com/pFBnOE3LUq
— FSU Baseball (@FSUBaseball) June 1, 2026
Florida State will need a true team effort to win back-to-back games, but they have beaten better teams than St. John's all season.
Manca would be a solid candidate to start, but he hasn’t thrown more than 28 pitches since an appearance in February before he got hurt. Mebil can throw multiple innings, and so can Abraham(though he didn’t look sharp on Friday night). However, Chris Knier didn’t either, but he was cooking against Northern Illinois on Sunday. They both threw 38 pitches on Friday night. I’d bet Abraham could go at least two innings if he could be efficient with his pitches.
If they could get three from Manca, Mebil, and one from Stokes, and then let Abraham close out the final two innings? That would do it.
I’d have to think Wes Mendes could throw 2-3 innings since he only threw 51 pitches on Saturday. Bryson Moore could probably throw 2-3 innings since he hasn’t pitched since Friday and only threw 88 pitches. Trey Beard only threw 67 pitches on Saturday and could probably throw an inning. Then it would be one inning each for whoever is available. We might be in Gabe Nard territory by then.
The biggest thing that could help the Florida State pitching is the offense scoring lots of runs on Monday. St.John’s has been putting up runs since beating Florida State in the Tallahassee Regional opener. If FSU can win that first game, St. John’s likely starts to feel the pressure.
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