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Published Feb 28, 2021
Clark: No need to panic, but definitely cause for concern for FSU baseball
Corey Clark  •  TheOsceola
Lead Writer

It was as ugly a weekend as we've seen at Dick Howser Stadium in a long, long time

But even after getting swept at home by Pitt to fall to 2-4 on the season, I'm still not sure it's time for the FSU baseball team to hit the panic button just yet.

Heck, even if the Seminoles wanted to, there's a good chance they'd swing and miss it.

I kid, I kid.

After this weekend though, there is definitely cause for concern. Because this weekend was unprecedented.

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Florida State hadn't been swept at home in a three-game series since 2017. And that was against a top-10 North Carolina team. The Seminoles have only suffered three sweeps at home in the last 15 years (Clemson in 2015 and Georgia Tech in 2006 were the others).

No offense to Mike Bell's team. I think the Panthers have a chance to be pretty decent. But I don't think they belong in the same sentence as those other three programs. And yet they were still able to come in and sweep the used-to-be-nationally ranked Seminoles.

"Extremely disappointing," FSU head coach Mike Martin Jr. said after Sunday's 9-7 loss in 13 innings. "Frustrating. That's a good baseball team. They're going to win a lot of games."

On the other hand, Florida State is not a good baseball team. Not right now anyway.

There are pieces. Lots of them. The arms, at times, looked every bit as dominant as they were supposed to be when the season began. The Florida State pitching staff struck out 44 batters in the three games, including 19 in the loss on Sunday.

But they also gave up 17 runs (13 earned) in three games as well. And on Sunday, they blew a 7-3 lead after Pitt had two outs and nobody on in the top of the 7th.

Part of that was just some bad luck -- the Panthers' two-run double in the seventh came on a bloop that landed just in front of a diving Elijah Cabell -- and part of that was because even guys that pitched well on Sunday struggled to get that one last out.

Davis Hare was great for 2 2/3 innings after Conor Grady was pulled with nobody out in the fifth. But he gave up a two-out, two-strike single and then followed that up with a four-pitch walk, setting the stage for the bloop double that got Pitt right back in the game.

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