FSU baseball continues torrid start with 10-8 win, clinches series at No. 8 TCU

It wasn’t the laugher that Friday night was, but it was another great win for the Florida State baseball team.

Behind sophomore Jaime Ferrer’s two two-run homers, the Seminoles beat No. 8 TCU, 10-8, on Saturday to secure a huge series win in Fort Worth, Texas. Link Jarrett’s club will go for the road sweep on Sunday with Carson Montgomery on the mound.

After a 10-1 win on Friday, the Florida State bats scored 10 more on Saturday against the Horned Frogs’ pitching staff. Though, unlike Friday, when Jackson Baumeister and Wyatt Crowell silenced the TCU bats, this one was a tight game heading into the ninth inning.

Trailing 2-0 in the top of the fourth, Jordan Carrion delivered a two-run single to tie the game. An RBI groundout by James Tibbs made the score 3-2 in the fifth, and then Ferrer followed with a two-run bomb to center field to give the Seminoles a 5-2 lead.

It was 5-4 the following inning as reliever Conner Whitaker, who came on for freshman Jamie Arnold in the third, ran into some trouble and allowed single runs in the fifth and sixth innings.

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But then the Seminoles erupted for five runs in the top of the seventh to seemingly blow the game open. Freshman Cam Smith, who had three hits on the day, launched a line-drive solo homer off the light pole in right-center field. And after a Tibbs walk, Ferrer hit his second two-run bomb of the day.

Carrion then doubled and scored on Treyton Rank’s RBI single. Rank then scored on Nander De Sedas’ RBI single to make the score 10-4 in the top of the seventh.

That’s when things got dicey for the Florida State pitching staff.

The Horned Frogs scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh, thanks in large part to back-to-back walks by reliever Doug Kirkland, and then scored two more in the eighth. But Andrew Armstrong induced a critical 6-4-3 double play to end the Horned Frogs’ threat in the inning, and he then got three straight groundouts in the ninth to secure the win for the Seminoles.

Florida State is now 6-0 on the season and 3-0 on the road.

Sunday’s game is scheduled to start at 2 p.m. ET.

Notes from Florida State

• Jaime Ferrer was 3-for-5 Saturday and is 6-for-10 with six RBI, six runs, two doubles, a triple and two home runs in the series against TCU. Saturday, he became the first Nole since Mat Nelson in May 2021 with two home runs in a game; he is the third Nole this year with three hits, three runs and three RBI in a game (DeAmez Ross vs. James Madison, Cam Smith at Jacksonville). He has hit for the cycle over the past two games and reached safely in 19 straight games, the longest active streak on the team and tied with James Tibbs III for the longest career streak among active Noles.
• Ferrer tied his career high with three runs scored and four RBI. He has scored three runs in back-to-back games vs. TCU.
• DeAmez Ross walked and Cam Smith singled to start the game. Both players have reached safely in the first six games of their college career. Smith added his team-high third home run of the season in FSU’s five-run seventh inning.
• FSU turned a triple play to end the first inning. It was the Noles’ first triple play since May 3, 2009, against Virginia Tech.
• Colton Vincent doubled to start the fifth inning, his fourth double of the year. He extended his hitting streak to 10 games, the longest of his career and the longest career streak for any active Nole. Vincent has five extra-base hits in six games in 2023; last year, he had six in 58 games.
• Ross, Smith, Ferrer, Tibbs and Vincent have reached safely in all six games this season.
• Jordan Carrion singled to score Tibbs and Ferrer and tie the game in the fourth inning. He leads FSU with 13 RBI on the season. His double in the seventh inning was his team-high fifth of the year.
• FSU has scored 10+ runs in four straight games for the first time since the 2019 postseason (ACC Tournament, three games in the Athens Regional). FSU is averaging 10.8 runs per game in 2023.
• Andrew Armstrong earned the first save of his career, pitching 2.0 innings, including a perfect ninth. He leads FSU pitchers with four appearances and opponents are hitting just .100 against him in 6.1 innings.

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