There are some nights in baseball that everything breaks your way. There are other nights when nothing seems to go right. Wednesday night for the Canes was the latter.
Miami dropped an 8-1 decision to the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles Wednesday night in front of 2,328 fans at Mark Light Field, handing starter Danny Garcia his first loss of the season (4-1).
The Eagles’ Nick Rivera twice took Garcia deep, accounting for five of the seven runs he allowed, though only five of them were earned on account of three UM errors. The Eagles would tag Daniel Briggi for another run in the eighth inning.
Things got ugly from the start, as Eagles leadoff man Matt Reardon started a game with a chopper to third baseman David Thompson, who misplayed the ball for an error – one of two errors on the night for the hot-hitting third baseman.
The Eagles got another runner on before Rivera’s first home run stayed just fair over the left field foul pole.
Rivera’s second home run was a no-doubt shot into left-center field with one on and no out in the third.
That would be more than enough for Eagles (12-13-1) starting pitcher Jordan Desguin (3-0), a reliever making his first start of the season, as he held the Canes to one run on four hits in a complete game effort.
“(Desguin) left a lot of pitches up,” Thompson said, who had one of the Canes’ four hits, extending his hitting streak to 15 games. “And it was one of those nights where we kept popping stuff up. We put no pressure on the defense and made him look really good.”
Miami scored its lone run in the bottom of the third. Christopher Barr singled with one out and moved up on a Johnny Ruiz sacrifice bunt. Leadoff man Carl Chester knocked Barr in from second with a base-hit after Ruiz’s sacrifice. That would be it for the Canes’ otherwise lifeless bats.
Desguin had the Canes (18-8) number all night long, striking out five and walking one, using 118 pitches to shut UM down.
The Canes now head north to Chapel Hill to take on the North Carolina Tar Heels.
Also: The Miami men’s basketball team, one night after coming back from 18 down to beat the Richmond Spiders in the NIT, threw out the first pitches before the game.
Most of them were able to make it to the plate, though some, most notable center Tonye Jekiri, threw their pitches well over the Canes baseball players’ heads.
The Canes were not able to recreate the basketball team’s heroic comeback. The basketball team is heading to New York to play in the NIT semi-finals in Madison Square Garden next Tuesday.