The Flaming Spear

FSU baseball will be glad to move on from the Florida Gators. This weekend FSU hosts the Duke Blue Devils baseball team. The last two weekends have dominated Wake Forest in a sweep on the road and then took 2 of 3 games in dominate fashion against NC State at home. Both series were top 10 series wins for FSU who look dominate outside of games played against teams not named the Florida Gators. Duke comes in ranked 131 in RPI, a record of 17-8 and a conference record of 4-5. They have a series win over Miami (FL), but two series losses to Virginia Tech and Notre Dame. The Way FSUI is pitching and hitting on the weekend series right now, Duke is going to have to play well above their record and RPI to have a chance in this one.

Keys to Winning

1. Duke is fast, very fast. Duke has 103 stolen bases through 25 games. That’s an average of over 4 stolen bases a game. That’s an insane number this early in the season. For Duke to win this season they need to create chaos on the base paths. FSU isn’t a great defensive team, and this is something Duke must take advantage of early and often.
2. FSU is hitting the cover off the baseball right now. They have 91 extra base hits as a team and have walked 133 times so far. Duke pitching has given up 124 walks so far. If Duke has any chance of winning this series, they must keep the FSU bats quiet and keep FSU off the bases. Duke can’t give free passes because right now FSU is making teams pay for this.
3. Can FSU’s pitching rebound from a semi shaky weekend. Wes Mendes labored through 5.1 innings throwing 100 pitches and giving up 5 runs, 4 of those earned. NC State worked the counts and made him come in the zone. Mendes has been lights out this season and Duke is a good team to get back on track against. Beard followed in Mendes’ labored outing as NC State made pitch to them and chased him out early on. Moore was fantastic again on Sunday. He’s turned into a solid Sunday starter and I’ve been impressed at what he’s been able to do the past couple of weekends.

Prediction

For Duke to win they have got to pitch their best game so the year against a FSU team that is red hot at the plate in the ACC. An almost 5.00 ERA as a team doesn’t give a lot of confidence against a FSU team that has routed two top 10 teams in back-to-back weeks. For FSU, continue to pitch like you have and hit like you have (outside of Florida) and they should cruise to a series win. I think FSU wins the series and wouldn’t be surprised if FSU sweeps Duke and gets to 8-1 in ACC conference play setting up a massive series against UVA the following weekend.