FSU baseball blasts its way to midweek blowout of Bethune-Cookman
After a stressful weekend of slugfests against FGCU, the Florida State baseball team likely wouldn't complain about a stress-free midweek matchup.
That's just what the Seminoles (9-3) got Tuesday night, running away with an extraordinarily comfortable 10-1 win over Bethune-Cookman (8-5) at Dick Howser Stadium.
The win was the epitome of a well-rounded victory for the No. 21 Seminoles. The offense mashed with 17 hits, seven extra-base hits and three home runs. Six pitchers combined to come up one out short of FSU's first shutout of the season, allowing just five hits. And the Seminoles played error-free baseball with no fielding or baserunning errors in the win.
"Clearly, we played a nice ballgame. It's not easy to do that. You have to go earn every run, make every pitch and make the plays. We did a nice job from pitch one to the end..." FSU head coach Link Jarrett said after the win. "You're happy with a game like that. It's not easy to have games like that."
It's a promising trend for the Seminoles entering conference play. FSU plays its first ACC games this weekend, hosting Pitt (7-5) for a three-game series starting Friday at 6 p.m.
Another fast start
Getting off to strong offensive starts has been a trend for this FSU team early this season and that continued against BCU. The Seminoles got on the board in the bottom of the first inning on freshman third baseman Cam Smith's fourth homer of the season.
FSU plated two runs in the first inning, the sixth straight game in which it has scored multiple first-inning runs.
The Seminoles scored in four of their first innings at the plate, quickly assembling a 9-0 lead. Each of the nine members of the starting lineup and 12 FSU hitters overall had hits in the game.
Nander De Sedas hit his second home run of the season and then James Tibbs II added his fourth bomb of the season -- tying Cam Smith for the team lead -- in the seventh inning.
Bullpen pieces it together
After FSU had to use its two best relievers in last week's midweek game against South Florida, it got off without using either Wyatt Crowell or Connor Whittaker against the Wildcats Tuesday night.
Instead, a number of other FSU arms pieced together the strong outing on the mound. It was a true team effort with no FSU pitcher lasting more than 2.1 innings.
In his first career start, David Barrett retired the first seven batters he faced before issuing a pair of walks that ended his outing.
Ryan Denison and Jamie Arnold each threw two scoreless innings, with Denison recording his first career win in the process.
Brandon Walker threw a scoreless eighth inning in his first appearance since the opening series of the season.
Freshman Drake Flowers, making his first career appearance, pitched the ninth inning, nearly preserving the shutout before allowing the lone BCU run of the game with two outs in the ninth inning.
These FSU pitchers combined to issue five walks, but struck out nine Bethune-Cookman batters.
"It was really good. We're still feeling out, obviously some of these guys for the first time ever stepping on that mound in college..." Jarrett said of the collective pitching performance. "It was neat to see those guys go work. They work so hard."
The avoidance of using Crowell and Whittaker should set the bullpen up in much better shape entering the weekend series vs. Pitt.
