Florida Baseball Preview: No time for the Gators to feel sorry for FSU

Tonight Florida baseball will take on FSU in Jacksonville for the third and final game of their season series. Florida has won the first two games and is going for the season sweep.

You can’t watch the game tonight because the ACC Network is a poverty network, but the game will, in fact, still be played, and now is not the time for Florida to ease up on a wounded FSU program.

Florida Baseball: And no one sees it…

Because the ACC has TV rights to the game and apparently wants to shield the nation from seeing just how bad FSU is this season, the game will not be streamed for people to see.

In some ways, it’s hard to blame the ACC, as FSU is currently 15-27 on the season. What’s crazy is that the Seminoles didn’t start the year out too terribly. They swept James Madison, and took the series against TCU and Pitt.

But since their March 11 win over Pittsburgh to clinch that series, FSU has gone on to lose nine straight series, five of which were sweeps.

While Florida is eighth in the country in runs scored, FSU is 221st in the country, averaging less than six runs per game.

And while the Florida Gators don’t have the strongest pitching staff, ranking 76th in team ERA, FSU is 174th in the country with a team ERA of 6.21.

Jacksonville and Bethune-Cookman have better team ERAs than FSU this year.

At the plate, FSU will have Jaime Ferrer and James Tibbs trying to will them to victory. Tibbs is hitting .323 with 13 home runs and an OPS of 1.096.

But beyond those two, the Seminoles don’t have anyone batting over .300 and have just one other player, Cam Smith, with ten or more home runs.

Among the factors contributing to FSU’s demise, this season is that they are one of the worst teams in the country at drawing a base on balls. The Seminoles rank 282nd out of 295 teams nationally in walks. This is why their team on-base percentage of .340 also ranks 282nd nationally.

So the game plan for the Gators is simple, don’t walk guys. If Florida can just throw strikes and keep somewhat around the zone, the Seminoles are going to swing. As we have seen during the first two meetings between the two, FSU doesn’t have the bullpen to hold up over a nine-inning game, and eventually Florida’s bats should take over.

In truth, tonight’s game, win or lose, won’t do much to move the needle for Florida baseball beyond bragging rights to say they swept the Neighbors to the West.

But it sure would be a nice talking point to hang on to for another year.