Baseball drops series to Winthrop after fast start

It was an interesting weekend of baseball at Mark Light Field.

A monstrous rain storm crashed into South Florida, which forced a postponement of Saturday’s game against Winthrop, resulting in a doubleheader on Sunday.

Miami took the first game of the series. The theme of the win was scoring early and often. The Hurricanes won the game 16-4, backed by a strong outing from Carlos Gutierrez, who gave up only one run in five innings. Yonder Alonso, Danny Valencia, and Eddy Rodriguez supplied the offense, combining for 10 of the 16 runs. Blake Tekotte set the table for the big boppers in the middle of the order by going 2-for-3 with three runs scored and stealing three bases.

Game two of the series began at 10 a.m. on Sunday. Both teams were thrown out of their rhythm by the early start, but Winthrop showed that the first game of the series was nothing more than an aberration. The Eagles won 8-3 after falling behind by two runs early in the game. Winthrop’s comeback was capped off by a Mike Konstanty three-run homerun in the seventh inning, which put the game out of reach.

The starting pitcher for Winthrop, Chase Edwards, only completed 1.1 innings before being removed. The bullpen for Winthrop combined to pitch 7.2 innings and only gave up two runs.

“We can’t blame the rain for the performance today,” Head Coach Jim Morris said.

Manny Miguelez had a solid outing after giving off a leadoff homerun to Chris Carrara to begin the game. He settled down before giving up a two-run homerun in the sixth inning to Jack Dempsey.

Jason Santana relieved Miguelez and gave up two runs in 0.2 innings to pick up the loss. As the whole, the bullpen struggled, walking eight batters in four innings of work.

“We made a lot of fly outs,” Morris said. “We needed to put more pressure on them defensively.”

In the finale, the Hurricanes attempted a late rally. With the score 4-1 and one out, Weeks started the inning with a walk. Later in the inning, with runners on first and third, Alonso singled to right field to cut the deficit to 4-3. Nick Freitas ran for Alonso, but Settle was able to strike out Tommy Giles looking.

“Momentum changed when [Alex] Wilson came on the mound,” Morris said.

Wilson, a freshman for Winthrop, threw a brilliant game in his first-ever collegiate start, pitching 8.2 innings and allowing only three runs (two earned). Wilson retired 13 of 14 Miami batters entering the ninth inning.

“I just told [the team] where we are at,” Morris said. “You have to learn when you win or when you lose.”

Denis Brown can be contacted at dbrown@umsis.miami.edu