
By: Mike Kaffee, Hurricanes Baseball Reporter
SWEPT!! Not since2003 has Florida State swept the Miami Hurricanes in Coral Gables. The Noles did so convincingly outscoring the Canes 34-2 over the 3 game series. Against an arch rival only makes it worse and the pain will last for a long, long time. For three days, the Noles put on a clinic tattooing the ball everywhere in which our pitching rotation was unable to stop the bleed. Today, they put the icing on the game with shutout ball pounding out 12 runs on 15 hits. Like the other two games, the bats continued to remain silent. Today we only managed to come away with just 3 hits giving us a total of 11 hits for the entire weekend compared to the Noles 39 hits. As earlier reported Miami can not hit against LH pitching. Today, they started a RH and the results were even worse. Miami overall batted .103 striking out 12 times to add to their total of 34 for the series. RH Conor Grady was a buzz saw striking out the first 7 0f 9 batters faced. Miami only had one batter reach second base, 4th inning, for the entire game and that was on a WP. The only positives that can be reported was the hitting of the Brother who collected 6 of the 11 hits in the series and the pitching of Carson Palmquest who threw the final 2 innings today striking out 4 and not giving up a hit or walk. In all my years watching the Canes I have never seen a poorer performance in all aspects of the game. Mike Martin Jr. did an excellent job in scouting the team, but more so for their players in executing brilliantly on the field but more importantly with the bat. Today alone 4 of their 11 hits were over the fence with one double thrown in. They batted an overall .375, and .714 with RISP. This was a team on fire from the opening pitch Friday night and they came to make a statement and a statement they made. Miami needs to regroup and put this behind us and move forward. Hopefully they will meet again in the ACC Tournament and make things right by returning the favor in spades.
Only a couple of changes in the lineup and one being a last minute one for unknown reasons. Jered Thomas was scheduled to start as DH batting 6th, but Alex Toral came to the plate at the appointed time. No reason given. Batting 7th Adam Frank in lieu of Gabe playing right. Remainder of the batting order stayed the same. On the mound, still looking for his first win, 0-2, Daniel Federman with an 8.10 ERA
Typical FSU fashion, they jumped on the lead with a one out double which CDC got a late start on and went over his head. Mistake which once again proved costly with a follow up RBI single for the first of 12 runs to follow.
That didn’t start coming until the 3rd inning with 2 more on back to back HRs which was the 6th and 7th HR Daniel has served up this season. The 4th inning was as far as Daniel would make it before being relieved after one out and having loaded the bases already giving up another run after back to back singles and E2 on an attempted steal to third. Jake Smith would come in and things did not get much better. Back to back singles for three runs from the first two batters faced and it was clear the bases for a 3 run HR that hit the top of the RF fence and bounce in the wrong direction. Before the dust would clear a total of 7 runs bringing the score now to 10-0.
It did not get any better for Smith with an opening homer off the score-board. Jake completed the inning which brought in Anthony Arguelles in the 7th . Like the two before him, he would not go unscathed. One out single, followed by 2 walks to load the bases and a punch to right brought in the 12th and final score.
No highlights offensively for the Canes. As stated only one batter,CD, reached second base the entire game. Just three hits total. Two by CD in the 2nd and 7th and a single Anthony Vilar in the 6th.. For the Canes the order of the day was striking out which they equalled the total runs scored by the Noles at 12. The only one not to strike out in the starting lineup was Big Brother who had all of his outs went to the outfield. Even the PHs could not make a difference with 3of the 4 striking out. Only Tony Jenkins escaped a strikeout call with a 6-4 groundout
Defensively, a rare error by DC on his throw to three on a double steal getting pass Yoyo at 3rd for a score. The late start by CDC over his head also cost a run.
Pitching, what more can be said. They just did not perform with the exception of Carson Palmquest. Unfortunately he is only one pitcher and we must have the others contribute. Daniel Federman was Daniel Federman who I hope it has finally registered with Gino that enough is enough and move on. With an ERA of now 9.00, he should not see anther start this season. Two more HRs served up and not being able to make it through the 4th. Gino had the opportunity to replace him as Sunday’s starter last week and move him to Wed against FG but decided to go with Jake instead. The question now is who do you start Tues against FAU on Tuesday. Do you start with Jake and pull him after a few innings to save him for Sunday or do you go with an entirely different plan. Gino definitely blew this on believing in Daniel way too long.
I guess Gino summed it up best in his post game interview:
“Very, very disappointing. Not even sure what to say. It’s the most embarrassing performance I can recall in my days as a Cane,” head coach Gino DiMare said. “We just didn’t do anything right. It seemed like they did everything right. Just a very poor performance, very disappointing. Having said that, we better figure out a way to get it going, because we’ve got a long season ahead of us. And we had been playing well up into this point. But we certainly didn’t do that this weekend.”
Final words by DC to summarize the series:
“We’ve just got to flush it,” Del Castillo said. “Baseball is going to bite you in the butt sometimes and humbles you very quick, so we’ve just got to look forward to the next game and play hard.”
We got bit hard and the pain was excruciating. As stated, the worse I have seen following the Canes since 2002. Tuesday is a chance to get back on the right track with FAU at Boca starting at 630 followed by a weekend series with VA at Charlottesville.