Florida State had been without sophomore right-handed pitcher Ben Barrett since March 2 due to injury, but the talented arm revved back up this weekend and made a brief appearance against Duke.
Very brief.
Barrett threw just two pitches before exiting the game, with coach Link Jarrett being extra careful with him coming off the extended absence.
“It just didn’t look great. You’re talking about Barrett, right?” Jarrett said, meeting with local media on Thursday. “Yeah, the velocity is on these scoreboards basically everywhere we play now. So when we’re expecting ‘A’ and we get ‘B’ it was a little concerning.
“We wanted to get him in that game. We had to get him in that game. I know that game wasn’t headed in the right direction, but we were trying to get him in there and we did and it just didn’t quite look like we had seen it.”
Barrett has now made four appearances this season, tossing 10.0 innings worth of action. He has given up nine hits but only two earned runs, striking out eight while walking just three.
When healthy he can be a key arm in the rotation, and Florida State needs that with other pitchers also currently on the mend.
The good news is Barrett appears to be progressing without setback following the abbreviated appearance against Duke over the weekend.
“Now this week, in the lab and doing some of his work, it looked more like what we had seen than it did at Duke,” Jarrett said. “So when you’ve gone through this rehab, which we were very cautious with it, when you get out in a game like that for the first time, I think you need to knock the rust off a little bit and just settle in and pitch coming off an injury.”
As Ben Barrett looks to get back fully into the fold, he’ll have a chance to do so this weekend against a very good NC State team.
Florida State is looking to further strengthen its postseason resume and a strong result this weekend would certainly help. But the real goal is to just get Barrett back up to speed at his own pace.
“It was better this week and I hope it just, with repetitive; he felt fine,” Jarrett said. “Just with some opportunities to get back out there I think the comfort returns and we see the velocity and the breaking ball continue to tick up a little bit to where we have been accustomed to seeing it.”
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