No. 16 FSU baseball sputters out after fast start, takes first 2026 loss vs. No. 9 Auburn
· Yahoo Sports
Florida State baseball’s first ranked matchup of the season started exceptionally well.
Things went off the rails a bit from there.
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After the 16th-ranked Seminoles (4-1) jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first inning against No. 9 Auburn, the bats went dead and the pitching allowed too much traffic on the basepaths. The Tigers (5-1) handed Florida State their first loss of the season, 8-5, in both teams’ second game of the weekend at the Amegy Bank College Baseball Series in Arlington, Texas, on Saturday.
FSU’s offense got off to a scorching start against Auburn starter Jackson Sanders. The first three batters of the game reached on hits and the Seminoles led 1-0 two batters into the game on Brayden Dowd’s double followed by Noah Sheffield’s single.
The Seminoles then added three more runs with two outs on a pair of RBI singles by Gabe Fraser and Brody DeLamielleure as well as a wild pitch by Sanders.
From there, though, Sanders settled in. He allowed no more hits over his next four innings, striking out eight batters and retiring the final 10 batters he faced.
Meanwhile, the Tigers gradually chipped into the early deficit with Bryson Moore on the mound for the Seminoles. Moore’s second FSU start was much better than his first — especially considering the opposition.
Moore allowed a run in the second on a groundout, set up by an error he committed on an errant pickoff attempt at second, and a solo homer in the third, but managed traffic fairly well.
He induced a pair of double plays to escape jams unscathed, didn’t allow a hit with a runner in scoring position and allowed just three runs (two earned) over his 4 1/3 innings, during which he struck out three and walked none.
However, Cade O’Leary replaced Moore in the fifth, allowed the runner he inherited to score to make it 4-3 and then allowed two more runners he put on base to score. Auburn took a 5-4 lead in the fifth on a bloop triple which landed between Jace Estes and DeLamielleure and resulted in a collision which knocked both of them out of the game.
The Seminoles had a prime chance to level the game or reclaim the lead in the next half-inning but a Dowd flyout left the bases loaded after an Auburn error extended the FSU sixth.
Auburn added a run in both the sixth and seventh with a sacrifice fly in each frame to stake itself to a 7-4 lead.
FSU did plate its first run since the first on a dropped third-strike with Chase Williams at the plate in the top of the eighth, but a Dowd groundout with the tying run at second kept the Seminoles behind 7-5.
Auburn got the run right back in the bottom of the eighth, thanks to a trio of wild pitches by Ben Barrett, who got two strikeouts with a runner on third to limit the damage. Still, it was a day to forget for the bullpen, which allowed five runs (all earned) over 3 2/3 innings, allowing six hits, two walks and four wild pitches.
After a five-hit first inning, the Seminoles managed just two hits in the final eight frames, striking out 13 times and walking just twice. Fraser was the only FSU hitter with multiple hits (two) and the top five batters in the lineup were a combined 3-for-23 (.130) with eight strikeouts and one walk.
FSU held a hefty 13-3 hit advantage in its opening game in Arlington, but Auburn flipped that on the Seminoles in Game 2, racking up 11 hits and finishing 6-for-16 (.375) with runners in scoring position.
The Seminoles close out their weekend in Texas with a game against Nebraska Sunday at 3:30 ET. FSU hasn’t yet announced if Trey Beard will be able to make his first start of the season or if someone else will start on the mound.