It's probably doubtful that anyone has higher standards for the Florida State baseball lineup than Link Jarrett.

A former FSU baseball player himself, still the all-time NCAA leader in assists (802) and a primary supervisor in FSU's offensive approach, Jarrett expects a lot of his players at the plate.

Given all FSU lost off last year's College World Series team -- two first-round hitters and four batters taken in the first four rounds of the MLB Draft -- it was fair to expect a bit of a step back in offensive production.

Seven games into the season, FSU's offense still measures up favorably with the rest of the country. The Seminoles (7-0) are 23rd nationally and third in the ACC in batting average (.336), with nine or more hits in each of their last six games after they managed just four on Opening Day. Their 10 home runs are tied for 30th nationally and third in the ACC.

While Jarrett admitted after Sunday's 5-3 win over Penn that the team's offensive approach improved from the first weekend of the season to the second, he believes there's still plenty more room for progress entering Tuesday's 6 p.m. game at Jacksonville (3-4).

"I think we probably moved the needle forward a bit (vs. Penn). It's still not fully engaged, complete at-bats. Immersion and pitch selection and how dialed in you are of the at-bat is the whole key to this..." Jarrett said. "It's a work in progress right now. I can't say that I love what I'm seeing out of the at-bats. I do think it has moved forward a little bit."

Texas Tech transfer Gage Harrelson has been exactly the spark plug the Seminoles hoped he would be when they placed him in the leadoff spot. His .433 batting average is the best among FSU's everyday starters and he has the team lead in hits (13) and is tied for the team lead in RBI (11).

Junior middle infielders Alex Lodise (.400 with three home runs) and Drew Faurot (.379 with three homers) have been early highlights of FSU's lineup as well.

One area where the FSU lineup has struggled, though, is an aspect of the game where baseball as a whole has drifted towards over the last decade or so. The Seminoles are striking out a lot.

Through seven games, FSU has 57 strikeouts at the plate (second-most in the ACC), having struck out 10+ times in four games so far this season. At 8.14 strikeouts per game, that's over a full strikeout more than the 2024 FSU team averaged per game (7.12) and the hardest part of the schedule hasn't even begun yet.

"All in all, it's still not quite calibrated to the point of feeling like it's just quality AB, quality AB, quality AB," Jarrett said. "The strikeouts will happen from time to time, it's inevitable. The overall quality of things is probably not quite where we want it to be yet."

You can make a case that FSU's lineup has also been a bit unlucky as well. In Sunday's game vs. Penn alone, the Seminoles had numerous 100+ mph exit-velocity hits that were caught or fielded and resulted in outs.

Over the course of the season, a team hopes that strikeouts decrease while that ball-in-play luck evens out.

"If some of these balls we're talking about that are hit so hard, as hard as you can hit a ball with not a lot to show for it, if a couple of those are different, how do some of these innings look and feel and what is the discussion and the score of the game?" Jarrett said. "It's a tricky thing to measure but I would say it's not quite where we need it to be."

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Evan Chrest has had some personal stakes in each of his first two starts on the mound for the Seminoles.

Last Tuesday, the junior right-handed pitcher made his FSU debut in his hometown of Tampa, allowing just one run over 4.2 innings with four strikeouts in FSU's 6-2 win over USF.

This week, Chrest will be pitching against his former team. Jarrett confirmed Sunday that Chrest, who transferred to FSU from Jacksonville in the offseason, will make his second consecutive midweek start against the school where he spent the first two years of his college career.

"That's how things line up sometimes in this transfer era. You're going to have guys that were in that program that are on our team and we're going to roll over there and we're going to play," Jarrett said. "That's unusual but it's part of what you encounter when you're in an era where there is roster movement. It'll be interesting. I can't say that I've seen that a lot but we'll see it Tuesday."

While Chrest had a 6.82 ERA as a sophomore at JU in 2024, he was a Freshman All-American and the Atlantic Sun Freshman of the Year for the Dolphins in 2023 when he had an 8-2 record and a 2.68 ERA over 90.2 innings.

He'll be facing off against a JU lineup that put up four runs in a home loss to Florida last Tuesday and put up 23 runs in a home sweep of Illinois State over the weekend.

"We hope Evan has his "A" stuff. He needs to be down in the bottom of the zone with his fastball and then let the secondary pitches do their thing. That's going to be the key..." Jarrett said. "JU is clearly a very good team. They're in the regional discussion basically on an annual basis. They're tough and it's a tough little trip, but if you get out of the gate and you pitch it and you play defense, that carries you into any type of game. That's what I hope we can do."

FSU moves up to No. 5 in three major baseball polls

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