FSU pitching staff bouncing back in a big way from multi-week struggles

It wasn't that long ago that Florida State baseball coach Link Jarrett felt like his team had no answers on the mound.

Less than two weeks ago on April 6, he recalls sitting in the locker room after the Seminoles had allowed 29 runs in a two-game span to lose their first series of the season vs. Wake Forest at home.

"We couldn't contain things, their hitters seemed one step ahead of us," Jarrett said. "I still can't quite explain it. Hard to shake that off."

Those losses seemed like a culmination of what FSU had largely been able to overcome before that point in road series wins at Miami and Notre Dame the prior two weeks. The FSU pitching staff was issuing too many walks and, in turn, allowing too many runs for the team to have sustainable success.

In a 12-game span starting after FSU's sweep of Boston College through the end of the Wake Forest series, the Seminoles allowed 99 total runs (8.25 runs per game) and issued 81 walks (6.75 per game).

FSU's weekend starters, who had gotten off to an incredibly hot start to the season, ran into some issues that limited them from going as deep in games and bullpen arms who had largely been reliable early in the season all seemed to be slumping at the same time.

This combined to create some real uncertainty surrounding the program that may have even had an impact within the program.

"I think it's just natural when things aren't going well, chaos occurs inside the building, outside the building," FSU pitching coach Micah Posey told the Osceola on Wednesday. "Some of it's probably an overreaction, and so what happens is guys try to do more and the next guy tries to do more and the next guy tries to do more. And before you know it, you're not pitching anymore. Guys are just throwing haymakers, getting out of their delivery, not executing pitches.

"Sometimes doing less and simplifying the game is the way to go. That was a tough couple-weeks stretch. I think that's about as bad as we could throw the baseball, to be honest with you. I don't think you could throw any worse than that."

Just when things appeared to be at their worst, though, they now look to be turning towards the better in a hurry. After six FSU pitchers combined to limit Florida to five runs on April 8 — giving the offense a chance to win the game that it didn't take advantage of — the Seminoles turned in what has to be their best pitching weekend of the season at then-No. 25 Virginia Tech.

Facing a VT offense that entered the weekend averaging 7.6 runs per ACC game, FSU limited the Hokies to four total runs over 27 innings, allowing 17 hits and striking out 26 while walking just 10 batters.

That paved the way for FSU's first road ACC sweep of Jarrett's FSU tenure and quite a bounceback response just when the concerns about FSU's pitching staff were reaching a fever pitch.

"We went in and played as well as we could ask a team to play," Jarrett said of the VT series. "They showed a lot of guts."

Facing a bullpen game on Tuesday vs. USF, three FSU pitchers combined to throw a three-hit shutout in a runaway 19-0 win, striking out 11 batters, walking none and hitting just one with a pitch in the seventh inning.

After FSU had an 8.19 ERA over that 12-game stretch, the staff has a 1.88 ERA over the last five games and has allowed four total runs over the team's current four-game winning streak.

"A lot of times, people focus on the negatives or those things. Whenever you're failing, it's giving you an opportunity to learn what you're not doing well. Being able to evaluate that and make those fixes, that's a big deal," Posey said. "The messaging inside the building was just focus on what we can control and what we've got to do be better and try to give guys answers on what things they can do to be better sometimes. Is it a pitch tweak, tweak a grip, sometimes it's the arm-slot thing, sometimes it's delivery-related, tempo and sometimes it's mental as far as the pace of play. Some guys need to work faster, some guys work slower. And then sometimes it's just simply that kid needs to be able to take what he does on the practice field to the game mound...

"It's hard to just pinpoint one thing, but each guy has seemed to respond and tried to get better."

Perhaps the single biggest aspect of this turnaround of late was the resurgence of FSU's weekend starters as a unit at Virginia Tech.

Joey Volini was coming off his first bad start of the season (seven runs on 10 hits over 2.1 innings) the prior week vs. Wake Forest. Jamie Arnold and Wes Mendes had both seen some control issues pop up over the last few weeks after each started the season with exceptional command in non-conference play.

This trio combined to throw 19.2 innings in the Wake Forest series, allowing three earned runs on 12 hits. As a result, the FSU bullpen got a much appreciated break from heavy usage after relievers had to pick up after more than their fair share of shorter starts by starting pitchers over the prior few weeks.

FSU used just three total relievers in the VT series (one each game) and three more in the USF win. That leaves FSU's bullpen as fresh as it has been in weeks entering this weekend's home series vs. Virginia (20-15, 9-9 ACC), with heavily-used pitchers like Chris Knier and Maison Martinez over a week since their last appearance.

"Our bullpen is fresh. I couldn't ask for a better segment of the season where we actually were able to get guys some rest," Jarrett said. "The season has different phases to it in how things work. You go through periods of time where your starters are really good, and you may go through periods of time where the starters are not as effective, and then that bullpen gets taxed.

"We're just in one of those phases right now where the starters were good, we played really good defense, and it limited the workload of the bullpen. Just by nature of that, we do have some guys that are fresh now. Does that mean they're going to be lights out because they're fresh? Can't answer that. It's hard to predict some of these things, but it does give them a chance to breathe and catch their breath."

The timing is made even better when realizing how FSU will have to shuffle things around this weekend because of the short turnaround created by the combination of a doubleheader last Saturday because Friday's game was rained out and a Thursday through Saturday series this week to avoid playing on Easter Sunday.

As such, FSU will throw a bullpen game in Thursday's opener vs. UVA with John Abraham getting the start. Arnold will return to his normal day and start Friday's second game while Volini will stay on Saturday and start the series finale. Typical Sunday starter Wes Mendes will be used out of the bullpen, most likely on Saturday, Jarrett said.

"I always look at the health and the safety of the guys first," Jarrett said. "That's first, then you try to align things clearly to put the team in position to win and Abraham does that."

Jarrett admitted he hadn't done a ton of research yet on UVA when talking to media members Wednesday afternoon. The short turnaround was severely affecting his timeline. However, he is well aware of the challenges Virginia can present offensively -- even if the team has failed to meet its lofty expectations so far this season -- from facing them twice last season in the ACC Tournament and at the College World Series.

"They do such a good job throughout the years of their approach. They game-plan it up going into games as well as any team that I've coached against. They will absolutely wear you out if you can't make adjustments in-game..." Jarrett said of Virginia. "The brand speaks for itself. Very consistent, very poised, tough...Very physical and dangerous and dynamic. You're kind of on the edge of your seat every time you play them."

When: Thursday, 7 p.m.; Friday, 7 p.m.; Saturday, 4 p.m.

Where: Dick Howser Stadium, Tallahassee

TV: ACC Network (Thursday); ESPN2 (Friday); ACC Network Extra (Saturday)

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