FSU Baseball: When to Hit the “Panic Button”

The Mike Martin “Farewell Tour” has hit a bump in the road and veered wildly off course for Florida State baseball.

On Sunday afternoon, the Seminoles dropped the series to the Boston College Eagles, guaranteeing their first series loss to Boston College since 2009. The Eagles shut out the Seminoles 8-0, with all eight runs coming in the final three innings on a comedy of pitching mistakes and fielding errors.

Quite frankly, Florida State was lucky to win even one game of the series. In the second match-up that they won 4-3 on a walk-off, the Seminoles were outhit by Boston College 11-4, and they committed more errors as well. In the totality of the series, Boston College had a huge hitting advantage (40-19) and committed zero errors to Florida State’s five. A team with a 14-13 record came in to Dick Howser Stadium and dominated.

The trends are…not good. After a 12-0 start to the season, FSU baseball is 6-9 over the past 15 contests. Those six wins came against Virginia Tech (won series), NC State (lost series), Florida International, Notre Dame (won series), and Boston College (lost series). The two series wins on that list are against a 16-11 team Hokies team and an 11-13 Fighting Irish squad. Those are not exactly resume-boosters.

Meanwhile, the losses are to every team with a pulse. That includes the worst loss to Florida in Mike Martin’s career, a 16-0 rout at the hands of NC State, and a surprising loss to UCF.

It’s one thing to lose to Florida or NC State, or other quality opponents. It’s a more concerning result to lose to a team like Boston College, who probably won’t make the NCAA Tournament. Even more concerning is when the games aren’t particularly close. Sports are random, and stunning losses do happen. There was nothing stunning about getting outhit 40-19 and watching the FSU bullpen get absolutely shredded.

We’ve seen the team go through tough sledding in the past couple of seasons. It’s to be expected when a season is more than 50 games long. Arms get tired, players go cold from the plate — it happens.

So when does a “rough patch” become the regular state of affairs? A team with FSU’s hitting talent should not have this much trouble producing runs, nor should its pitching staff have so much difficulty finding a reliable rotation or arsenal at the back end of the bullpen. Part of the selling point in the preseason was how depth in both areas should be better, even if the top players from last season have departed.

None of it has come to fruition. Add on to the continued fielding atrocities, scheduled meltdowns against rivals, and general sloppy play, and it’s getting pretty close to panic time. The next three ACC series are against Miami, Clemson, and Virginia, with the final game against Florida sprinkled in there. All three of those teams are more talented and generally better than what FSU has faced so far (with the lone exception being NC State).

To his credit, Mike Martin seemed pretty upset about everything in the post game press conference following Sunday’s loss. He promised that changes are coming — though he was intentionally vague about what those changes would be. Presumably it would include a reshuffling of players, along with possible staff movement or change in duties.

But what changes could actually be made that would fix the issues we’ve all seen? It seems unlikely that the pitchers would radically improve over the last half of a season if they haven’t shown any progress so far. Maybe a shift in coaching would give some fresh air for the batting lineup? It’s all a huge question mark because Martin probably understands that he can’t fix everything.

With all this being said, the team can just as easily find its groove in the coming weeks. Robby Martin, Elijah Cabell, and Nander De Sedas have all flashed hitting excellence to begin the season. That group alone has combined for 65 hits, 10 home runs, and a .501 average slugging percentage. Should they continue to adjust to the college game, FSU’s lineup could become a genuine strength the rest of the way.

The answers are much less clear everywhere else. For now, fans will have to cross their fingers and hope that the slow start to this season is simply that — a slow start. Or that Martin has a genius master plan that he can’t wait to unveil. If that plan actually exists, it needs to come up sooner rather than later.

The next two weeks will be the most revealing of the season. Series against Miami and Clemson, along with midweek games against Jacksonville and Florida, can put this team on the right track to securing a postseason bid. Coming out of these next eight games with anything less than four wins would be the canary in the coal mine for the program. It would be the flashing LED sign warning that baseball is in danger of sinking to a newfound low — right as the program’s most prominent builder is preparing to leave.