The Notre Dame baseball team’s early part of the ACC schedule has taken on a repetitive theme.
Shaky starting pitching.
The latest rerun played out Friday night against former ND head coach Link Jarrett and his Florida State Seminoles, with unbeaten FSU taking an early 6-1 lead and cruising to an 8-4 victory at Dick Howser Stadium in Tallahassee, Fla.
Jarrett, who took the Irish to the College World Series in 2022, is in his second season back at his alma mater and has the Seminoles sitting at 16-0 after a 12-8 non-conference win over eighth-ranked Florida on Tuesday and a victory in the first game of a three-game series this weekend with the Irish.
In FSU’s rich school history, only the 2007 Seminoles began its season with a longer win streak (23) to start the season. It was Florida State’s conference opener.
On Friday night, they knocked Irish starter Tobey McDonough out of the game before he could record an out in the bottom of the second inning. He was charged with six earned runs on six hits, with two walks, a hit batsman and one strikeout.
The Irish (11-6, 0-4 ACC) entered the game with a 6.73 team ERA, 195th nationally out of 295 Division I teams.
Notre Dame’s bullpen, though, was impressive, with four pitchers combining for just two earned runs yielded over eight innings of work.
UCF transfer Cam Leiter (4-0) got the win for FSU, giving up four earned runs on six hits over 6 ⅔ innings. The nephew of former Major League pitchers Al and Mark Leiter and cousin of Chicago Cubs hurler Mark Leiter Jr. walked two and struck out 10.
First baseman Connor Hincks tripled and homered in four at-bats, driving in two runs and scoring two. Right fielder Brady Gumpf also went 2-fo-4, and he had an RBI. Third baseman Simon Baumgardt drove in the other Irish run.
The two teams are set to meet in game 2 on Saturday at 3 p.m. (EDT).
https://fightingirish.com/boxscore/394710/
FLORIDA STATE 8, NOTRE DAME 4: Box Score