Florida State Baseball pummels Butler, 15-5, completes opening sweep
Other than perhaps some better weather, Florida State baseball coach Link Jarrett couldn’t have asked for much more from the Seminoles’ season-opening sweep of Butler.
Two days after clobbering the visiting Bulldogs by 11 runs, the Seminoles cruised to a 15-5 victory on Sunday. It was a chilly day at Dick Howser Stadium, with the temperature hovering around 50 degrees, but the ‘Noles were happy to get this one in after Saturday’s Game 2 was washed out by rain.
Thanks to a dominant pitching performance from sophomore left-hander Jamie Arnold, several big hits and very aggressive base-running, Florida State sprinted out to a 10-1 lead through five innings and cruised from there. Arnold struck out a career-high nine batters while allowing two hits and one unearned run in five innings to pick up the victory.
The Seminoles will take a 2-0 record into their first road game of the season, Tuesday at Jacksonville University. The Dolphins are also 2-0 after sweeping a pair of games from visiting Cincinnati.
“Overall, happy,” Jarrett said. “Two good games. You could see that we have a lot of options.”
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Florida State was led offensively Sunday by catcher McGwire Holbrook, who went 3-for-3 with a double, home run and 5 RBIs. His three-run blast in the sixth inning landed in parking lot far beyond the left-field fence.
“Holbrook had a really nice day,” Jarrett said. “Poor guy last year was never really 100 percent. That’s what he had done if you look back at his career (at West Virginia) — he was that type of offensive player. So it was good to see it today in his first start.”
Second baseman Drew Faurot also went 3-for-5 with three runs scored, and the Seminoles got two hits apiece from center fielder DeAmez Ross, third baseman Cam Smith and left fielder Jaime Ferrer. Smith and right fielder James Tibbs drove in two runs apiece.
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Florida State’s offense finished the day with 15 runs on 16 hits, 11 walks and seven stolen bases.
And Arnold followed up Cam Leiter’s stellar pitching performance Friday night with one of his own. Jarrett said Arnold has improved his consistency from one year ago, and he also has developed a better slider and change-up to go with his fastball.
“Both of those have evolved for him,” Jarrett said. “When he can bring two secondary pitches, along with that climbing, riding fastball that’s 92 to 95 (mph) today, maybe, it’s a tough combination.”
Perhaps the only negative from the series was the performance by the Seminoles’ bullpen on Sunday. After FSU allowed just one unearned run in the first 15 innings of the series, the relievers allowed four runs (three earned) in the final three frames. Five pitchers combined to issue eight walks and surrender four hits during that stretch.
“I wish the guys out of the bullpen had been a little more crisp,” Jarrett said. “We’d seen better command out of those guys than, quite frankly, what we saw today. But that’s part of the learning experience that you can’t replicate in practice. They’ll be better for what happened today.”
Jarrett hasn’t yet named a starter for Tuesday’s 6 p.m. game at Jacksonville. He said veteran Conner Whittaker, who was supposed to be a starter this weekend, is an option.
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