Florida State’s 2018 season is over and it will leave a bad taste in Seminoles’ fans mouth for a while and it should. Florida State held a 2-0 advantage after eight full innings in a Tallahassee Regional elimination game on Saturday, but in typical postseason fashion, lousy weather rolled over Dick Howser Stadium and forced both teams to sit and wait for 150 minutes займ 1000 рублей на карту срочно.
FSU starting pitcher Drew Parrish seemed destined to throw the complete game until severe weather halted play. Parrish, a sophomore and first-team All-ACC performer, held the Bulldogs scoreless through eight innings; he only allowed three hits and did not issue any free passes while throwing 109 pitches. That should have been the end of his day — an outstanding outing the would put the Seminoles in position to play another day.
Instead, head coach Mike Martin made the ill-advised decision to send Parrish back to the mound for the ninth — a move that you never see in baseball for multiple reasons. It was a move that ended the Seminoles’ season and potentially “11”‘s career as the Florida State head coach.
109 pitches is already taxing a young arm. Throwing 130-plus pitches with a more than 2-hour delay in the middle is just dangerous and irresponsible coaching.
Parrish has shown time and time again how good he is on the mound, and he showed it again on Saturday against Mississippi State. He in no way deserves the loss in this game after giving his teammates and coaching staff everything he had.
One can only imagine how convincing Parrish was during the delay. He is a competitor who will always want the ball in a critical situation, but as a coaching staff, you have to know you can not give Parrish the ball and let him re-enter the game with only a 2-run cushion.
11 and pitching coach Mike Bell did let the sophomore return to the mound and he issued his first walk of the game to the first batter he faced. Another opportunity to pull him presented itself following the walk and bringing the tying run to the plate, but the staff did not make a move and Parrish remained on the bump for the Noles with two pitchers already warmed up in the bullpen.
Parrish walked his second batter of the game and in the inning with two outs in the ninth. That brought Elijah MacNamee to the plate. MacNamee had homered in the previous game against Oklahoma.
It was yet another chance for the Florida State coaching staff to bring in a fresh arm. But yet again, Parrish was kept on the mound for some reason.
MacNamee crushed the second changeup Parrish threw him in the at-bat for a 3-run walk-off home run to end the Seminoles’ season. If FSU wants to see more baseball at Dick Howser Stadium, it will have to watch the remainder of the Tallahassee Regional as MacNamee’s Bulldogs, Oklahoma and Samford fight for a spot in the NCAA Super Regionals.
MacNamee said following the game that he knew Parrish was not going to have the fastball after sitting for that long, so he was looking off-speed and he got his pitch after moving up in the box with a 1-2 count. The decision to send Parrish back out for the ninth inning does not make any sense, nor does leaving him out to dry after walking his first two batters of the game.
Martin tends to catch a lot of flack that he does not deserve when it comes to winning in the postseason. He is a great coach, but this was a poor display of coaching from the legend and he deserves the criticism that he is going to catch for his season-ending decision on Saturday.
Baseball is a funny sport. Parrish only allowed nine home runs in over 100 innings pitched heading into the last inning of play on Saturday. He gave the Seminoles an opportunity to play another day with his efforts, but Martin did not.
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