With Wyatt Crowell sidelined, losses mount and Florida State still searching for answers

To put things lightly, the Florida State baseball season is in turmoil.

The Seminoles began the season at 6-0, and fans immediately felt confident new head coach Link Jarrett could spark a first-year resurgence. Those fans have been given a reality check over the last three weeks, having seen Florida State’s last win come on March 17 against Boston College.

Since then, the Seminoles have been defeated in nine straight games.

There are a multitude of issues leading to the losses, with the main culprit being pitching.

Wyatt Crowell’s presence on the mound was the X-factor for Florida State early in the season. And lately, his absence has revealed how crucial he is to this team’s success.

The left-handed junior was rated the No. 72 MLB draft prospect before the season by MLB.com, and he showed why he’s on that radar in his limited action this season.

Crowell has appeared in just five games, and most of the work was out of the bullpen. His first four appearances were in relief, where he threw a total of 14 2/3 innings. During those outings, he racked up 23 strikeouts, a pair of wins, one save, and only allowed two earned runs.

“I like coming in in the middle of games with runners on base, it makes it a little more competitive,” Crowell said after tossing 5 2/3 relief innings behind Carson Montgomery against a strong and experienced Florida Gulf Coast lineup.

Crowell earned a win in the final game of that series as the Seminoles avoided a sweep after dropping the first two.

The Seminoles won each of the four games where Crowell appeared on the mound going into the biggest home promotion of the season. With FSU in need of better starting pitching, Jarrett called upon Crowell to start in front of a packed house at Dick Howser Stadium for Buster Posey’s jersey retirement game on March 11.

Crowell went the first six innings before a crowd of 6,300 that Saturday.

Nothing changed with him moving into a starting role for the first time. The slider was just as dominant the second and third time through the Pitt batting order. Crowell earned his first career win as a starter, and he tallied 10 strikeouts to go with three hits; he allowed no runs, which lowered his season ERA to an impressive 0.87.

But since then, Crowell has been unavailable due to an undisclosed arm issue, and it is uncertain as to if or when he will make his return this season.

Without Crowell, Florida State dropped a pair of midweek games at UCF in mid-March, and the negative momentum has been unforgiving. FSU lost two of three games at home to Boston College and followed that with a loss to No. 3 Florida, in a game that the Seminoles led 5-1 going into the fifth inning.

Jarrett used every product under the sink to try to clean that game up. Ben Barrett went four strong innings, allowing only one run. Conner Whittaker threw two innings and allowed two to cross. Then the wheels fell off after Jamie Arnold loaded the bases while recording one out, and Jarrett had to turn to weekend starter Jackson Baumeister to try and get out of the jam.

It didn’t work, and the Gators tacked on five runs in the eighth inning to run away with a 9-5 victory.

Since that game, Florida State has been swept at No. 8 Virginia and then again at No. 23 Miami. And pitching hasn’t been the only problem. The Seminoles have struggled defensively at times, and the offense has produced two runs or less in five of these nine straight losses; they have scored more than four runs just once in that stretch.

Florida State was outscored 27-6 by Miami, and the Seminoles will need to turn things around quickly or a midseason slump won’t be their only worry. They are now 12-15 on the season and 3-9 in ACC play.

Currently, Florida State is tied with UM for the longest NCAA postseason appearance streak across all sports by appearing in regional tournaments consecutively for the past 44 years. The only difference is the Seminoles’ streak is active (the Hurricanes’ ended in 2017), and there is still a chance that Florida State can find a way to resurrect this season and make history in Jarrett’s first year.

The Seminoles get back on the field at home tonight at 6 p.m. against Jacksonville.

***Talk with other Seminole fans on the FSU Baseball Forum***