A look at Florida State’s starter.
The Tennessee Volunteers are again back in Omaha, this time as the No. 1 overall seed.
Its opponent, eighth-seeded Florida State, returns to Omaha for the first time in five years. The Seminoles are a familiar foe, but not in the way one would expect. Tennessee beat them 23-16 back in 1998 to win the college football national championship.
Per Warchant.com on X, Jamie Arnold is the expected starting pitcher against the Volunteers. The Sophomore left-hander from Tampa gives up an average of 4.5 hits per game, according to Seminoles.com. His season-high on May 10 versus Pittsburgh, there were 17 strikeouts.
Originally, Arnold started the season behind Cam Leiter, a transfer from UCF. But after Leiter was sidelined due to an injury, Arnold established himself as the regional ace by pitching against UCF in the regional and UConn in the Super Regionals. His most recent game-opening start came in the ACC Tournament, which is also in the CWS, against Virginia.
Arnold leads all College World Series pitchers in innings pitched (100), strikeouts per inning (1.54), total strikeouts (155), and victories (11). At 2.77, he has the second-best ERA in the CWS.Evan Aschenbeck, a pitcher for Texas A&M, ranks top at 1.66. The Vols’ starting pitcher, Chris Stamos, has an ERA of 4.02.
Why may this be an issue for the Vols?It faced opponents with similar numbers in the SEC tournament, Texas A&M and LSU, but it prevailed in both games.
Throughout the entire season, Tennessee has relied on strong hitting and scoring runs. With a batting average of.310 and 697 hits, including 617 runs scored, it is leading the SEC. Late in the season and in the postseason, though, it left a lot of runners on base. The Vols need to stop leaving runners on base in order to prevail against a strong pitcher. Additionally, Tennessee leads the SEC with 15 total runners picked off this year.
Tennessee has the best odds to win the College World Series at +290. With odds of +800, Florida State is ranked fifth out of eight teams.
