As sparkling as Florida State's record has been on weekends, the Seminoles' fate in midweek games as taken a startling turn.

A week ago, FSU lost Evan Chrest to an apparent arm injury in the second inning. On Tuesday, started Payton Manca — who didn't make it out of the second inning.

Bradley Frye and Brad Baughcum hit two-run home runs as Mercer jumped on FSU early and took an 9-3 win over the Seminoles.

"Clearly outplayed tonight in essentially every phase of this," FSU coach Link Jarrett said. "We could never grasp any consistency on the mound."

It was FSU's second straight midweek loss. The Seminoles used eight pitchers on the night, allowing eight earned runs on nine hits and eight walks.

Mercer right-hander Jeb Johnson held the Seminoles to a pair of singles before Max Williams crushed a no-doubt three-run home run to right field in the sixth inning to cut the Bears' lead to 7-3. Johnson had a career-high nine strikeouts.

"Our inability to recognize the change-up and the slider, he kept it down," Jarrett said.

FSU batters struck out 14 times.

Alex Lodise went 1 for 4 with a run scored as he extended his on-base streak to 19 games.

Jarrett said Chrest has "some options" but did not go into detail on the right-hander's injury.

"He's trying to decide," Jarrett said. "He's got some options. And he's trying to decide what he wants to do. It's not an overnight thing. It's down the road. You can see what his role stabilized for us in the midweek. It was nice. So we'll figure it out. He's got a road ahead of him."

FSU will travel to Miami on Wednesday for a three-game series that begins with the Hurricanes on Thursday at 7 p.m. (ACC Network).

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