Mike Kaffee
Hurricanes Baseball Reporter
[email protected]
Game one goes decisively to the Gators. Miami was never in the game after the 3rd inning. While the Gator’s pitching held the Canes in gridlock with just one hit after the first, the Gator bats terrorized Miami pitching with 14 hits over the course of 8 innings including 4 HRs, 3 doubles, and one triple. For the third week, Gino went with Gage Ziehl as the Friday starter and for the third week, he has been hit extremely hard. My way of thinking is that you go with your strongest pitcher for Friday night and it is obvious that Gage is not our pitcher of choice based on past performances. With ACC competition starting next week, Gino is definitely going to have to make the move to take Gage out from Friday starter, and if he seriously wants to keep him on the weekend rotation move him to Sunday. Yes, Gage gets his share of strikeouts, 9 tonight, but more so this is far outweighed with the number of hits/runs he gives up. Tonight, for the 5 innings pitched six runs on 9 hits along with 3 walks. These are not stats you want to see for your Friday night starter. After Gage having had his best inning in the 5th with a pair of strikeouts of the 3 batters faced, Gino stretched for a 6th inning already having thrown 85 pitches. The gamble failed with the leadoff batter tripling to right-center which ended the night for Gage and it only spiraled downward as the BP was not able to stop the deluge of what was to follow.
Minor adjustment to the lineup from Wednesday night. Edgardo Villegas led off followed by Dario Gomez. Also shuffled Yoyo and CJ Kayfus. I would rather Gino had kept Yoyo batting third just to give him that extra at bat. Carlos Perez was back to catching batting 8th with Dominic Pitelli batting in the ninth position.
Miami started like they were a team on a mission and silenced the 8081 Gator fans as Yoyo laid into one traveling 453′ striking the roof of a house beyond the ballpark in left field. This would be the last of the Cane’s hitting until a single in the third also by Yoyo. Miami bats would remain silent for the remainder of the game.
Gator fans soon got over their shock with the Gators answering in the bottom half of the first getting back one of the three runs with the first of four HRs leaving the park tonight. By the third inning it was all tied at three and in inning four Florida took the lead and never looked back.
Gage having been hit with two runs on three hits in the third and the same in the fourth all appeared quiet coming from the Miami BP. Gino has to know that our BP is going to be tested this series to the max and was probably not going there until it was absolutely necessary. By the end of the 4th, it was but Gage came out in the 5th and had his best inning.
Trailing 5-3 at the end of 5, Miami without a hit managed to move to within one, with a SF to center by our SS Dominic Pitelli. All hopes for a comeback were dashed in the bottom half of the 6th when Florida pressed down on the accelerator and did not come off the throttle until they put up 5 unanswered runs: three in the 6th with a pair of HRs and two in the 8th on their 4th HR of the evening. Neither Carlos Lequerica nor Alex Walsh was able to close the floodgate once it burst open in the 6th.
Other than the first inning, this game was not a pretty site. With only 4 hits for the entire evening, two from Yoyo accounting for three of our four runs he also accounted for half of our hits tonight. Edgardo single in the first and CJ Kayfus also in the first was it for our offense.
Pitching, what can be said that hasn’t already been said. Gage should not be our Friday night starter; plain and simple. With an ERA of 11.25 how can you justify keeping him especially when you want to start on a positive note with ACC competition next Friday. Karson will have his work cut out for himself tomorrow but he is our best chance to even up the series. However, he will need run support from our bats if we expect not to go 0-2 and face a sweep on Sunday.
Weather is a factor for the 2PM start time. Probably of rain 30% dropping off to 0% by 6PM.
