Arguably the most embarrassing weekend in recent memory for Miami Hurricanes baseball, the three games resembled almost every ounce of haplessness not witnessed very often at Mark Light Field.
There is not much to say about the weekend series against Florida State. Any fan who saw any of UM’s three contests against the in-state rivals would also be at a loss of words.
Miami (9-7, 5-6 ACC) was outscored 34-2 over the three matchups and never gave themselves a chance in a single game.
Not hitting the ball was an understatement, as the Canes did not even put up more than five hits per game.
Allowing 10 or more hits to almost any team in each game of a college series remains porous when looking at the abilities of starting pitching. Though a lack of resiliency against the most bitter of in-state rivals does not set up well either.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I see this happening,” said head coach Gino DiMare. “I knew we had some match up difficulties with some of their lefties, but this was beyond that.”
DiMare said that such major drop off in pitching and overall competitiveness remained the most embarrassing factor throughout the series.
“Not one of…the most embarrassing performance I can recall as a Cane,” DiMare said.
The Canes fell from No. 6 to No. 19 in the weekly D1 Baseball rankings.
“It was just a horrible weekend all around,” infielder Anthony Vilar said after Sunday’s series finale. “Friday, they got ahead early, they hit, they swung the bat well. Saturday, we made a lot of errors early in the game, which caused them to capitalize on Saturday and get ahead. Today they just swung the bat again, we weren’t making the right pitches late in the count, and they got ahead early and we just, again, couldn’t come back.”
About his team’s mental state after the series, DiMare was blunt.
“Right now at this very moment, they all should be down. There’s not one person that should be up and I have no problem with everybody being down a little bit right now because they should be embarrassed and ashamed.”
“We better figure out a way to get it going because we got a long season ahead of us,” said DiMare. “Baseball’s something where you got to bounce back and be ready to go so that’s something that we will do certainly.”
The Canes will have to turn around quickly before they face Florida Atlantic Wednesday night in Boca Raton. First pitch will be 6:30. p.m.
“I’m very concerned, of course,” DiMare said on his team’s mental status leading into another midweek matchup against a team UM has already recently seen.
Miami’s next weekend series kicks off this Friday at the University of Virginia. First pitch in Charlottesville is slated for 4 p.m. on Friday, March 26.
Austin Pert contributed to the reporting of the story.