FSU can't overcome early deficit in series-opening loss vs. NC State
Friday night's series opener between No. 7 Florida State and No. 20 NC State had a little bit of everything.
15 combined runs, 20 combined hits, 10 total pitchers and a game time well over five hours because of a weather delay that lasted nearly two hours Friday night in Tallahassee.
In the end, FSU proved unable to overcome an early deficit it put itself into before the rain delay. The Seminoles rallied from down 6-2 in the third inning to trail 8-7 in the eighth.
However, the Seminoles (34-10, 13-9 in ACC) stranded the bases loaded in the eighth with a pair of strikeouts and were retired in order in the ninth, falling 8-7 to the Wolfpack (26-17, 13-9) Friday night at Dick Howser Stadium.
"That's a talented team. They played better than us in all phases tonight," FSU head coach Link Jarrett said after the loss. "They were better than us in every phase."
The deciding run in the game came on a bases-loaded wild pitch thrown by Connor Hults, who inherited the bases loaded in the top of the eighth.
FSU ace Jamie Arnold failed to pitch at least five innings for the first time this season, seeing his outing come to an end after just three innings due to an extended lightning delay.
Even while he was in the game, though, it was his least effective start of the season. NC State didn't have too much hard-hit balls, the Wolfpack strung together hits against him, plating four runs in the second inning and two more in the third.
While only four of the nine hits he allowed got out of the infield, some defensive miscues and failures to make plays behind him complicated matters for the sophomore pitcher.
"I don't know if I've ever seen that many infield hits. I don't know if I've ever seen it in my entire career," Jarrett said. "It happened, they capitalized. We had too many misfires, things in the infield we didn't handle right, we didn't handle the short game right."
His six runs allowed were twice as many as he had allowed in any prior start this season. And the nine hits he allowed Friday night were three more than he had allowed in any start this season over many less innings.
After he exited due to the delay, Ben Barrett got one out and then Brennan Oxford gave the Seminoles the length they needed out of the bullpen due to the weather-shortened start. The senior reliever allowed one run on three hits over 3.2 innings, striking out five batters and walking three.
In all, FSU's pitching staff put runners on at way too high a rate Friday night. The Wolfpack put 23 men on base across nine innings (14 hits, eight walks and one hit-by-pitch). Had they not wildly squandered their opportunities, stranding 13 runners on base, the game may have been effectively over long before it actually ended.
For awhile, it didn't look like these escape jobs by the FSU pitching staff were going to matter very much at all. After FSU tagged NC State reliever Shane Van Dam for three runs in the third inning on a pair of home runs from James Tibbs III and Marco Dinges to cut the deficit to 6-5.
After that, the FSU bats totally struggled to figure out NC State reliever Cooper Consiglio, who started his appearance with four shutout innings of one-hit work before FSU finally got two runs off him in the eighth inning set up by a pair of walks.
But when NC State ace Derrick Smith out of the bullpen, the Seminoles were similarly unable to figure him out. He retired five of the six batters he faced, three of them by strikeout.
FSU finished the loss with just six hits, four of which came from the two through four in the lineup in Cam Smith, Tibbs and Dinges.
Up Next
FSU and NC State are set to play Game 2 of the series Satuday night at 7 p.m. on ACC Network.