Florida State baseball completed the sweep of the Xavier Musketeers on Sunday afternoon, winning the third game of the series 5-1 in a relatively unexciting match-up. The Seminoles begin the season 3-0.
The Good: Florida State’s pitching continued to be exceptional. Starter Drew Parrish went for six innings and allowed just three hits, while also striking out nine batters. Freshman Conor Grady replaced him on the mound and might’ve looked even more impressive. He went for two innings and allowed zero hits while striking out five. Jonah Scolaro came in for the ninth inning and finished it off. It’s too early to draw many conclusions about pitching depth, but it certainly can’t hurt for the newcomers to see action.
The Bad: Despite the 5-1 score disparity, Florida State had just one more hit than Xavier on the day. Xavier walking eight batters certainly didn’t help its case, but there were moments where both sides got retired in under five minutes. It was probably the least exciting game of the entire series because of this lack of production at the plate.
The Ugly: With the above numbers in mind, it becomes apparent that the Xavier errors on the day were much more costly than its lack of offense. Even though the Musketeers committed just two official errors, one play in particular stands out. With the bases loaded and two outs in the third inning, Xavier was close to getting out of a jam. Then a wild pitch occurred and Rhett Aplin grabbed a run at home. In the same play, the catcher bobbled the ball and allowed Cal Raleigh to come home as well. It made the score 4-0 and eventually 5-0 when J.C. Flowers hit a single into the outfield. That’s more than half of Florida State’s runs in a couple of plays.
Studs of the Game: Drew Parrish and Conor Grady get the obvious nods for their combined 14 strikeouts and three allowed hits over nine innings. For Xavier, pitcher Trey Schramm deserves credit for going three innings and giving up zero hits.
Duds of the Game: Musketeers’ pitcher Damien Richard is tagged as a dud of the game for giving up all five earned runs in his three innings of action. He was also the culprit for the wild pitch sequence that brought home two FSU runs.
Extra Innings: Another season, another forecast of 32 degrees in the press box. Don’t worry, I usually stop complaining about this type of stuff when it becomes so hot outside that you sweat just looking through a window.
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