Ok, so you needed a scorecard...
Plenty of Seminole surprises Tuesday afternoon show they ain't done yet
Ok, so you needed a scorecard to remember the rather slender form of Andrew Armstrong (6-2, 154 - invisible from certain angles). And evidently, the coaches just about forgot him, too.
The slender one hadn’t pitched since the 89th anniversary of Babe Ruth’s 714th and final HR, his third of the afternoon, the first fair ball struck out of Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field. (It was May 25, 1935 in case you forgot the date, too.) Armstrong allowed three runs and hits in an inning and a third against Wake Forest. (He’ll want to forget that, too)
And it’s also likely that there wasn’t a lot of time spent in North Carolina skull sessions worrying about how to pitch to the Seminoles No. 9 hitter, Jaxon West, a modest .254 batter. That is likely to come up in post-game.
And finally, the King of the Uncle Charley, the deuce, the 12-to-6er, the hammer, left-hander Connor Hults, who happened to be the guy standing on the hill Friday night for the final pair of pitches, the last of which was walloped into the left centerfield game and provided a most bitter conclusion to the festivities, offered a much better finish to this one, curving the North Carolina comeback kids into submission, even striking out their folk hero, flawlessly-named Vance Honeycutt, who took a honey of a cut at a two-strike hammer in the 9th and caught only air.
Florida State did much better on endings this time, staying alive in the NCAA College World Series with a thumping 9-5 win that, you can bet, had the check-swinging Vols of Tennessee sitting down with the video tape before tomorrow’s rematch. Why? Because the hitters they’ve undoubtedly spent the most time on - sluggers James Tibbs, Cam Smith, Marco Dinges and Jaime Ferrer - were a quiet 3-for-17, their only RBI coming on a bases-loaded walk by Ferrer, whose previous Omaha power show had so frightened UNC just-in-the-game reliever Matthew Matthijs that he remained in the game long enough for those in the press box to get the spelling right.
So if it weren’t them, who DID come through? Well, start with the bottom of the order - Jaxson West with a stunning four-hit day, capped off by a sweet 9th inning HR, the Noles’ first 4-hit day in Omaha since some other catcher named Posey - no relation to Micah. Then the top of the order with Max Williams who followed West’s HR with one of his own on a breaking ball in the 9th, letting FSU coach Link Jarrett finally exhale.
And there were others, Daniel Cantu, who has hit some of the hardest balls in the tournament with little to show for it thus far, with an RBI single, Drew Faurot with a two-out RBI single just like his old man, Alex Lodise with an RBI single of his own and West with his second hit, also an RBI single in their sweet four-run 5th, staking FSU to a 7-1 lead.
That 7-1 lead didn’t last long, sadly. Though Armstrong had only surrendered back-to-back doubles to Honeycutt and Cook in the 4th, an infield hit and a walk in the 5th brought in Friday’s reliever Conner Whitaker, who was no relief here. After giving up a 3-run shot to Honeycutt, two hits and a walk brought Jarrett out to the mound and Hults out of the bullpen.
This time, it was the right move. Hults pitched the final, crucial, critical, walk-the-plank final four and one-third, allowed just two hits and - let’s hear it Seminole Nation - not a single run. NOT ONE RUN. So…it can be done. We’ve seen it. The bullpen CAN come to the rescue here in Omaha. The question now it, can they do it again? And again? And get the Noles into the weekend.
But before you celebrate West or Hults or the rest of the ballclub, you have to start with surprise starter Armstrong, who battled through some odd early rib issue (Hard to tell the kid HAS ribs), prompting a remarkably comprehensive mid-game diagnosis/explanation from FSU coach Link Jarrett who spoke so swiftly and intensely, the handheld microphone appeared to melt just a little.
“You won’t find a more transparent coach in any sport at any level than Link Jarrett,” marveled announcer Mike Monaco. “He tells you everything you wanted to know.” It was clear that while the ol’ Seminole shortstop obviously had a lot on his mind at this moment, he covered everything. Even the wind.
And the start of Armstrong, well, that was gutsy, taking a guy who hadn’t thrown in a game in 25 days, putting him out on the Schwab Field on windy day, mind you. The kid’s only 154 pounds! (Somebody better get him to Omaha Steaks! Jackie Niles?)
The task before Jarrett’s Jolters from here, of course, is mighty. Not only do they have to beat the rested, haughty, No. 1 Tennessee Volunteers on Wednesday, if they do, they’ll have to beat them again on Thursday to get into the College World Series Championship Series, which will start on the weekend.
Thinking about the two games, of course, is just what Tennessee wants the Seminoles to “volunteer” to do. Yeah, the Vols are rested, have been sitting around wondering who they might play - though I bet they spent their time worrying about facing that Florida State lineup again. Any reasonable person would. And it’s not like the Seminoles didn’t get to see a bunch of their pitchers in Friday’s 12-11 war. That’s the good news. The UNC reliever they lit up today, lefty relieve Dalton Pence, was discussed in such hushed tones, it was almost as if the game might end the minute he took the hill. Those FSU bats - and not even the highly touted ones - put an end to that nonsense.
As has been demonstrated again and again on the grandest stage there is for college baseball, this FSU lineup is, top to bottom, the best in the college game. If THIS TIME, Coaches Jarrett and Posey opt to pitch around Christian Moore in just about every situation - my strong personal recommendation - why not make the rest of the Vols beat you? They wouldn’t have been able to - based on what we saw on Friday night. Moore did it almost single-handedly.
The bad news is, somebody - and I highly doubt it will or should be Jamey Arnold - is going to have to step up out of that bullpen and find some outs, which, you’d assume would be between linebacker Joe Charles or John Abraham with Brennan Oxford in relief. That will be a tall order against the No. 1 team in the country, according to the experts.
But you had to like how it seemed every other Seminole picked the big guys up. Tibbs almost surprised himself, hitting a first-pitch double. Smith was 0-for-5. You can’t expect Ferrer to keep hitting home runs in this Yellowstone of a ballpark but he did crush one to centerfield. And Max Williams is just going to hack. Kid can’t help himself.
If Tuesday was an all-hands-on-deck game, Wednesday’s rematch with Tennessee may be where we truly see what these Seminoles have left in ‘em. There isn’t a team in the history of college baseball - even the Gators - that this ballclub wants more than Tennessee. And sure enough, they’re going to get ‘em. Maybe twice, even.