That was a great atmosphere at the Rusty C yesterday. Good crowd, had trouble finding a place to park, FSU fans were decently nice (surprised at that) and Jacket fans were really into it, especially early when it was a tight game. The roar that went up in the 2nd inning after we turned the DP was quite loud. Then we did what I never ever expected us to do...pound FSU's pitching.
As of this morning, GT leads the entire ACC in batting average. We are 6th in pitching ERA. I have been dissing our offense, but I guess I will shut up now, GTNavyNuke's theory about the bats warming up as the weather warms up is clearly correct!
Gorst was the only disappointment yesterday, and the disappointment was not the long, LONG home run he gave up to Stewart (I don't think I have seen a longer homer all year!) but the two walks to lead off the inning. He's a kid, and he knows that was dumb, and he was getting on himself on the mound, but both walks came around to score (as walks so often do). Just think about this....FSU hits for almost 10 points lower batting average than GT does (0.289 vs 0.280) BUT they have a huge lead in runs per game (7.4 vs 5.8 because they draw walks at a much higher rate than we do...or most anyone else, for that matter). Walks lead to runs, pure and simple. The rest of our pitchers (Stanton, Roberts and Schneiderjans) all walked only one guy total in their 8 innings. That's how you pitch FSU.
FSU, by the way, has scored the following in 3 game weekend series against ACC teams before this weekend:
Miami 24 runs
Maryland 23 runs
N C State 23 runs
Clemson 18 runs
B C 27 runs
N D 23 runs
GT has held then to 7 runs in 2 games thus far.