Mike Kaffee
Hurricanes Baseball Reporter
[email protected]
Miami looking for their second sweep of the season and first in ACC play got swept out of Doug Kingsmore Stadium in humiliating fashion in their worst showing this season. The Clemson battery took out their frustrations of four straight losses with aggressive style baseball. They pounded Miami pitching relentlessly for 20 runs on twenty hits taking down every pitcher Miami threw at them from the BP. Miami’s starter Alex McFarlane only lasted 2.1 innings and you knew if they went to the BP that early, it was all over. Miami used 6 from the BP trying to stop the bleeding, but it only got progressively worse topping out at 8 runs with 12 batters coming to the plate for the Tigers in the 8th inning. Miami showed very little life with a bit of a spark in the 7th with a 3 run HR by Yoyo traveling 399 feet. That was Miami’s only extra-base hit compared to the 5 HRs that left the stadium for the Tigers. The Tigers roared today, but when all is said and done Miami still takes the series and that is the bottom line.
Miami’s only adjustment to the lineup was Renzo and Mike switching in the batting order. Alex McFarlane got the nod over Jake getting the call who would have had after a quick turnaround from Wednesday’s short outing. Unknown if this was even in the equation on going with Alex today.
Clemson’s heavy weight of 4 straight losses was lifted off the Tiger’s shoulders on the very first pitch of the ballgame. That quickly set the tone for what was to follow. For the first 5 innings Clemson would put runs on the board. The ineffectiveness of Alex trying to stop the barrage of hits/runs finally got relieved in the third after relinquishing 5 runs on 6 hits. No one else from the BP was able to handle the show of force that Clemson brought to the plate. Before the third inning was over Miami would bring in two from the BP, facing ten batters total and have 6 additional runs to their already 2 runs go up on the scoreboard.
Miami was not able to respond until the 4th inning, with a single run from Dominic grounding out to first. This brought home Jacob Burke who started the inning being hit and advancing to third on a single by Dorian.
The lone run by the Canes was answered in the bottom half of the inning with two by Clemson leading off with a double and their second HR of the day.
In like fashion, Miami repeated in the 5th with another lone run initiated with a lead-off single by Mike Rosario eventually coming home on Edgardo grounding out 6-3. This was followed With Clemson answering with another 2 RBI HR; their third.
Miami trailing 12-2 in the 7th, Miami gave the visiting fans reason to get excited with Yoyo sending a screamer to left-center to close the gap to 12-5.
This would be the last time any cheer would be heard from the Miami fanbase. One inning later the Miami BP went into total collapse utilizing three more relievers trying to close the floodgates which brought 12 batters to the plate and not able to deny 8 runs on 7 hits with the defense committing two errors. Two of the seven hits were HR #4 and #5.
Just to add salt to the gaping wound that Miami was suffering they ended on a sour note: 6-4-3 DP by Gaby Gutierrez, PH for Edgardo Villegas.
As good as Miami looked in games one and two offensively, defensively and pitching they looked that bad in game three in all categories. I have been saying this all season that Miami’s Achilles Heel is their BP. We have one maybe two relievers plus a Closer but other than that it is a crapshoot. You aren’t going anywhere deep postseason with just 2 pitchers. Other than Palmquist and Ligon who else do we have that we can truly rely on to start. Jake is our next best hope if there is no injury to be concerned with. You just might see Gage Ziehl being promoted to mid-week being our best reliever. If Gage moves up, then the first call from the BP might very well go to Rafe Schlesinger. That still leaves a gaping hole on Sunday. It is either Jake or Alex for now. Niether of which has been consistent JD has a lot of work trying to get some semblance of a BP together if we are going to have any chance going deep in Conference play.
Miami has an away game at FAU on Wednesday at 630PM before returning home for a weekend series with NC who took the weekend series against Duke. Miami is tied with GT in the Coastal behind VA and NC. To say the least, this is going to be a very big weekend. Come out and show your support at the LIGHT.
