Anchored by quality pitching and timely defense, Florida State advanced to the NCAA Baseball Tournament Super Regional with a 5-2 win over Mississippi State on Sunday, June 1.
The ninth-seeded Seminoles (41-14) rallied with late-inning heroics to beat Mississippi State at Howser Stadium. FSU has won six consecutive regional games, all at home, and eight postseason games in a row in Tallahassee. The Seminoles will play against the winner of the Corvallis, Oregon, Regional.
But before Cal Fisher’s two-run seventh inning blast and the crucial eighth inning singles from Max Williams and Myles Bailey, FSU got a quality start from Wes Mendes that won the Seminoles the game before the runs on the scoreboard reflected it.
Mendes threw a career-high eight innings, and despite the first pitch of the game being a Mississippi State home run, the sophomore worked efficiently through the innings, tossing 105 pitches in his outing.
His performance capped off a strong month for the lefty, who shook off some midseason struggles to deliver his best outing of the season in the regional final.
“Honestly, I feel like I get better as I go on,” Mendes said. “Fall, spring, it’s kind of a fast ramp-up, I’d say. I had a good start, but kind of lost a little bit in some ACC play. These last couple of weeks just finding myself at the end of the year, gaining velo back. It’s all coming together at the right time.”
For comparison, Mississippi State’s starter Karson Ligon threw 101 pitches in four innings. The performance on the mound from Mendes stabilized the Seminoles in a chippy, fiery game, that saw FSU head coach Link Jarrett ejected in the third inning. An MSU assistant coach and hitter were ejected in the ninth inning for arguing balls and strikes.
Quality on the mound was the theme of the weekend for FSU as the pitching staff allowed seven runs on 20 hits in three games, struck out 37 batters, and kept pitch counts relatively low for the length of outings.
“I haven’t gone through a season that I can recall as a head or assistant coach with three starting pitchers that perform from the first weekend to this one,” Jarrett said Sunday.
“And there’s other guys here very capable of starting, but these three [Arnold, Mendes and Joey Voini] were the ones that seemed to put us in the right direction and gave us plenty of options in leverage moments.”
The staff was supported by a strong defense, with the Seminoles turning five double plays and going error-free over the 27 innings played.
FSU baseball’s bullpen allowed no runs in three Tallahassee regional games
One of the biggest questions the Seminoles had to answer in the postseason was the reliability of their bullpen.
After three games, FSU’s relievers passed their first test with flying colors. The Seminoles bullpen allowed no runs in nine innings of relief work and combined for 13 strikeouts while only surrendering five hits.
Joe Charles delivered three hitless and scoreless innings while striking out six in the two games he appeared in. He has become the Seminoles’ most reliable arm out of the bullpen in late-game situations, and he rewarded Jarrett and pitching coach Micah Posey’s faith in him with quality outings.
“I thought the bullpen guys, from game one, got better, and Joe was sharp, sharp, sharp,” Jarrett said. “You’re not going to hold teams like this [Mississippi State] at bay unless you get good starts and you have quality execution on the backside of the game.”
The bullpen was beneficiaries of long starts from Mendes and Jamie Arnold, who went seven innings and struck out 13 in the 10-3 win over Mississippi State on Saturday.
The two long starts from Arnold and Mendes gave the bullpen arms time to rest after six innings of relief on Friday against Bethune-Cookman, which was brought upon by a two-and-a-half-hour weather delay that forced FSU to pull Volini after three innings.
While the bullpen wasn’t called upon much, the quality of the relief appearances and short length of outings has the Seminoles in good shape going into the super regional.
Timely and quality defense keeps FSU baseball’s opponents off the scoreboard
The Seminoles’ defense provided the pitching staff the support it needed. Be it the diving catch from Alex Lodise at shortstop in the win over Bethune-Cookman or the slick double plays in the regional final vs. Mississippi State, FSU’s defense kept run production low.
Outs came in different ways for the Seminoles, and having quality defense is something Jarrett eyed when building his roster.
In the win over Bethune-Cookman, FSU recorded three double plays, all coming on balls caught and the Seminoles throwing out Wildcat runners who were caught off base without tagging.
FSU didn’t allow more than two runs scored in an inning over the course of the regional weekend, with the Seminoles defense holding its opponents scoreless in 22 of the 27 innings played.
“Our defense was impressive the whole time. The bunt play, Fisher making that nice play on the bunt to get the lead out, huge part of the game,” Jarrett said about Fisher’s seventh inning play.
“We defended pretty well all weekend, which we’ve seen our team do for the better part of the year.”
What’s next for FSU baseball?
The Seminoles await the winner of the Corvallis regional, with Oregon State and USC set to play a winner-takes-all game seven on Monday after the Beavers staved off elimination with a 14-1 win Sunday.
If USC wins, the Seminoles will host the super regional round at Dick Howser Stadium. Should Oregon State win, FSU will travel to Corvallis for the super regional.
Liam Rooney covers Florida State athletics for the Tallahassee Democrat. Contact him via email at LRooney@gannett.com or on Twitter @__liamrooney
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: How quality pitching, timely defense led FSU baseball to win the Tallahassee Regional
Reporting by Liam Rooney, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
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