It was a rough weekend at No. 10 Florida State as Duke was swept 3-0 in the conference series. Despite several strong pitching performances, the Blue Devils were overmatched by the Seminoles’ pitching staff and timely hitting.
Duke (20-23, 4-17 in the ACC) lost 2-1 Friday night in a pitcher’s duel. Blue Devils Dennis O’Grady and Chase Bebout were superb on the mound against Florida State’s No. 1 starter, Sean Gilmartin.
It was another quality start for O’Grady as he allowed only two runs and struck out five in his 5.2 innings of work.
“Up and down the lineup they have guys that can hit for power, and when they get on base they can run,” O’Grady said. “I just tried to go out there and throw strikes, mix up four pitches the best I could. I walked a couple people early in the game, but I settled down.”
Even though Bebout was lights-out for the remainder of the game, striking out four and only allowing one Seminole to reach base, Gilmartin was completely dominant for eight innings. The junior gave up three hits and one run while striking out 13 Blue Devils.
“I think he’s the best pitcher we’ve seen in the league,” head coach Sean McNally said. “He was really in complete control.... It was a good lesson for our young hitters. We’ve got to find a way to put the ball in play more and put some pressure on their defense.”
Saturday brought more of the same. Duke was unable to generate any offense, but Florida State (31-10, 14-7) brought their bats and clobbered the Blue Devils 10-3.
Starter Marcus Stroman struggled a bit with control. Despite striking out nine batters, Stroman allowed six runs in his five innings on the mound.
Out of the bullpen, Ben Grisz and Mark Lumpa didn’t fare any better against Florida State’s potent lineup. Grisz allowed two runs during his inning of relief, and Lumpa also gave up two runs, although one was unearned.
In the final game of the series, Duke lost 13-9, but the Blue Devils came out aggressive and jumped out to an early 8-4 lead after just two innings. In the first inning, Chris Marconcini belted an RBI double and Will Piwnica-Worms hit a groundball that scored another run.
While Florida State scored four in the bottom of the first, Duke responded with six more in the top of the second. Jordan Betts and O’Grady both hit a double, and the Blue Devils tallied six hits in the inning.
“Early in the game we tried to be really aggressive, swinging early in the count,” O’Grady said. “They were throwing us fastballs early... and we put some good swings on it, hit some doubles, drove some guys in with two outs.”
Meanwhile, Robert Huber got off to a shaky start by giving up four runs in the first, but only allowed one more run in his five innings pitched. When he exited the game, the Blue Devils held a three-run lead.
Then Duke fell apart. Florida State picked up a run in the sixth, and then exploded for six runs off Bebout in the seventh. Florida State won thanks to the comeback.
“I think we lost a little bit of our aggressiveness,” O’Grady said. “In the late innings we started walking guys, made a couple of errors, threw the ball to the wrong bases—mistakes that we can’t make if we want to win.”
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