Bullpen bounce-back night on big stage gives FSU's relievers optimism

The bus trip back to Tallahassee was no fun for anyone, not after this weekend at Clemson: A run-rule loss, seeing an 8-1 lead evaporate in the ninth frame of game 2 and then an 11-2 lead disappear in the latter innings of game 3.

FSU coach Link Jarrett said on Wednesday the Seminoles had plenty of time on the bus, about 20 hours total, to reflect on the lowest of lows in a weekend sweep and the highest of highs in a 14-3 rout of Florida in Jacksonville. One consistency is the number of runs produced from a lineup that is among FSU’s best in years.

But the bullpen was tasked with something more than a short turnaround. Round 2 of FSU vs. Florida would be a full-bullpen game: Nine innings, 27 outs against a talented Gators lineup. As it turned out, FSU only needed to pitch eight innings and record 24 outs.

“One pitch focus and one pitch warfare and dominating the one-pitch battle,” Jarrett said. “And just repeating that for the 300 pitches of these games. It was tough getting on that bus yesterday, those guys knew what this meant and how it felt.”

The biggest bright spot on a night with plenty of them was freshman right-hander John Abraham. He gave up three earned runs on two hits and a walk in .1 innings of the game 2 loss to Clemson, 9-8 on Saturday. But on Tuesday, he took the ball in the fourth inning and tossed 3.1 hitless innings.

Abraham allowed two walks and hit a batter, so it was far from perfection. But he faced 10 batters, struck out five and induced five groundouts. And 55 pitches later, Abraham had helped FSU bridge the middle innings with relative ease in front of a partisan UF crowd of 7,710 in Jacksonville.

“We just had to respond from this weekend and I feel like we did a pretty good job of that," Abraham said. "… We met with (pitching coach Micah) Posey before the game and he was like, ‘Honestly, just attack hitters. Go right after them. Don’t be scared, keep a foot off the gas. That’s when bad stuff happens.’ I was just going right at them. It worked out well.”

Plenty of things worked out well despite an inauspicious start. Left-hander Andrew Armstrong tossed just an inning, giving up an opposite-field three-run homer to Jac Caglianone that was just inside the foul pole. Jarrett had intended for Armstrong to go a few innings, but that plan soon was scrapped.

Any immediate and rational concerns were erased inning by inning. Joe Charles gave up the only hit the rest of the way, a third-inning double by Caglianone, but had three strikeouts and no walks (Charles tossed two innings and picked up his first win of the season).

While Abraham ran into some early trouble in the seventh with a one-out walk followed by a hit by pitch, Brennen Oxford shut the door with a pair of strikeouts to end the threat. Oxford then had a 1-2-3 eighth inning to wrap it up, far from a save given the score but a confidence-building moment for him as well as the bullpen.

Just two days earlier, Oxford had given up three earned runs on two walks, three hits, one strikeout and a wild pitch as Clemson mounted a rally. Tuesday he looked like a different pitcher.

“That was as good as I’ve seen Oxford throw,” Jarrett said. “He came out of a game at Clemson, I can’t explain what happened, some of the stuff up there. He went from struggling to being as good as I’ve ever seen him in that environment.”

After FSU’s bullpen allowed 23 earned runs in 8.2 innings at Clemson, the four FSU pitchers on Tuesday allowed UF just three hits. An FSU bullpen that doesn’t have right-hander Ben Barrett and will be without Gavin Adams (elbow) for the season has been shorthanded, perhaps putting freshmen and veterans in tough spots.

That’s the job, of course. But gaining experience on the road, or in front of a packed house at a neutral site, will help the Seminoles as they get deeper into 2024.

“Some of the guys were coming off tough weekends,” Jarrett said. “And we knew that. Basically everybody involved in that game was coming off something that may not have gone well for them on the mound. And you’ve got to go back on the horse and go engage and bring your A-quality stuff. I thought for the most part we did that.”

The Seminoles’ starters will be pitching on short rest for multiple reasons, a rainout last Friday at Clemson as well as a weekend series bumped up to begin Thursday due to the Easter holiday.

FSU will stick with Cam Leiter in the No. 1 spot, and it could help him that he didn’t go as deep at Clemson (six earned runs, 18 batters faced in 2.2 innings).

“That was a blessing in disguise, I guess,” Jarrett said. “I’m not going to say it was much of a blessing but it is what it is. Maybe it helps. Jamie (Arnold) felt fine. We knew going in that it was going to be a short (outing). So you're trying to protect these guys number one … I think we're OK, for as bad as this week looks and the doubleheader and all the busing and yesterday (Tuesday), I guess we came out of it ok in terms of the pitching timeline.”

Thursday: 6 p.m. (ACC Network Extra)

Friday: 6 p.m. (ACC Network Extra)

Saturday: 2 p.m. (ACC Network Extra)

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