The Florida State Seminoles hosted the regional and super regional rounds in Tallahassee, but now that they’re headed to Omaha for the College World Series, they’ll have to adjust to a whole new ballpark.
Charles Schwab Field, with its expansive outfield lawn, is a larger and more offensively challenging stadium that’s going to force each team to win a little bit differently than they did in the regional rounds. Florida State head coach Link Jarrett is well aware of this fact and is trying to get his guys to understand just how different the CWS park is.
When speaking ahead of FSU’s first game in the College World Series, Jarrett pointed out that playing defense will be key given how Charles Schwab is laid out.
“The defense is different out here,” he commented, noting that he wanted to get the Seminole players familiar with the layout.
“Now, I will tell you that when we walked in that stadium today, I wanted the guys to see it. It’s bigger, the wind changes things. There are days you can’t hit a ball out of there from second base, there’s other days when it’s blowing straight out that balls do go out.”
Per Jarrett, the Florida State outfield will have to be on their toes.
“But any way you slice it, the dimensions force the outfielders to run a lot of balls down, and when the wind is keeping the ball in the park, then it creates a little bit more for the outfielders, because those balls that are really hit probably stay in. So we have to acclimate to that and those three guys have to understand the dimensions and the wind and how that facility plays.”
With a fence line that’s pushed back compared to other parks, there’s going to be less home runs and more flyouts than in the previous rounds, per Jarrett.
“It’s different than most college venues and I think the scoring in some of the regionals and super regionals — at some of the college stadiums, the ball flies out of a lot of these places and they’re not big. So when you get out there, sometimes the games are a little bit different.”
It was normal to see 10 runs from winning teams in the super regional round — heck, last Saturday, six of the eight winning teams scored exactly that number of runs. However, at the CWS, expect some lower totals while the ballpark also tests each team’s defensive skill a bit more than some other stadiums.
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