UPDATE: FSU expected to start Joey Volini in Super Regional opener

THURSDAY NIGHT UPDATE: After evaluating things at its Thursday practice in Corvallis, Ore., the Florida State baseball team is planning to start junior left-handed pitcher Joey Volini on Friday in the opening game of its Super Regional at Oregon State.

The Seminoles will save ace Jamie Arnold until Saturday so that he will have his normal full week of rest.

Volini is 8-5 this season with a 3.68 ERA. Oregon State is expected to start freshman right-hander Dax Whitney (6-3, 3.78).

FIRST REPORT

If Link Jarrett already knows who will be his Game 1 starter on Friday evening in Corvallis, he wasn’t giving away any hints.

The Florida State head baseball coach met with the media on Thursday afternoon to talk about the Seminoles’ upcoming Super Regional showdown with Oregon State this weekend. He said that Friday’s starter will either be Joey Volini or ace Jamie Arnold, but that he and pitching coach Micah Posey wouldn’t decide who will get the ball until after Thursday practice.

“I know all three of our guys are going to be in good shape,” Jarrett said. “I’m worried about our personnel. No. 1, what’s in the best interest of our personnel to be the best versions of themselves? … You have to stay logical with what you’re asking these high-level arms to do. I owe it to them to make sure we do it right.”

Arnold pitched one of his best games of the season this past Saturday night in a win over Mississippi State. Wes Mendes pitched — by far — the best game of his Florida State career the following night to help the Seminoles knock off the Bulldogs and win the Tallahassee Regional.

Volini, however, allowed two runs and six hits in just three innings of work in the opening game against Bethune-Cookman. After a weather delay of more than two hours, Jarrett and Posey elected to go with the bullpen the rest of the way.

Arnold, obviously, is the most talented arm of the three. It’s why he is expected to be a very high first-round draft pick next month.

But if he started for Florida State on Friday, that would technically be short rest for him because it wouldn’t be the typical full week in between starts. Meanwhile, Volini hasn’t pitched even four innings in a game in three weeks. The All-ACC second-teamer would figure to be much fresher for Game 1.

At the same time, Volini hasn’t been nearly as effective in the back half of the season as he was in the first half. Mendes and Arnold have been much better down the stretch.

So, the risk FSU runs is throwing its third-most effective starting pitcher in the first game of a best-of-three series and getting in an immediate hole against a very good team. On the road.

“I want to gauge it, feel it, think it through and then go,” Jarrett said on Thursday. “I want to be smart and prudent and efficient. At some point, if you’re in survival mode, you have to try to survive.”

Jarrett seemed to intimate that Mendes could be used out of the bullpen on Saturday if the situation called for it (and assuming Volini and Arnold started the first two games). If either the Seminoles have a lead late and need just a few outs to advance to Omaha or they need a few outs to keep their season alive.

Either way, Mendes could perhaps be an option. Jarrett pointed back to last year when Florida State used Conner Whitaker, who likely would have been the Game 3 starter, to pitch out of the bullpen against UConn in Game 2 to help FSU get to the College World Series.

“I don’t have to decide just yet,” Jarrett said. “I want to be smart. … We’ll see what practice bring us.”

Jarrett already knows what the weekend is going to bring: A very tough opponent in a very tough atmosphere. Oregon State is a three-time national champion and has been a perennial baseball power for years.

The Beavers also are 21-3 at home this season, including winning the last four games of their regional by the combined margin of 50-6.

“We’re walking into an elite team,” Jarrett said. “They’re very dynamic, physical, explosive. High-profile pitch stuff from the starters, and some of the guys they’ve used out of the bullpen. … We’re walking into a situation that is as good as it gets.

“It’s a great roster, great program, great environment. … We’ve got to bring everything we have to have a chance here.”

Unlike his current players, Jarrett has been on the road in the Supers before. He took Notre Dame to Mississippi State in 2021 — and lost in three games — and then took the Fighting Irish to No. 1 Tennessee in 2022 and won in three games.

He knows what Super Regional atmospheres are like on the road.

His players are about to find out.

“You really have to have tunnel vision,” the third-year Florida State head coach said. “Those are some tough places to walk into. The noise at different moments in the game, it’s different. It’s pulling against you a little bit. And when you’re at Howser it’s working for you in some respects.

“But we build it for this.”

No Leiter for Seminoles

Jarrett also seemed to offer the final word on whether right-handed pitcher Cam Leiter, who has been rehabbing from an arm injury for well over a year, would ever take the mound again for the Seminoles.

“It sure doesn’t look like it,” Jarrett said on Thursday.

A few weeks ago, it seemed as if things might be trending positively for Leiter to return for the final few weeks of the season. Jarrett and Posey both said they hoped he could make a return.

But on Thursday, Jarrett said there are “high-level people involved in the care and rehab” and they want Leiter to hit certain benchmarks before they would deem it safe for him to pitch in a game. Apparently, those benchmarks have not been hit, and the draft prospect will indeed miss the rest of the Florida State season. However long it lasts.

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