Canes Baseball Drops Series To Lowly Boston College

On Friday, the Canes opened up a three game series against Boston College in Chestnut Hill. Going into the series, BC was 0-20 in ACC play and just 6-34 overall. The series opener proved to be almost an exact replica of the game against Clemson last Friday. Chriz Diaz pitched yet another gem, but took the loss after Miami suffered a 1-0 loss to the Eagles. Diaz went 8 innings and the only run BC scored was unearned. He allowed just 4 hits and struck out 7. Miami was only able to muster 3 hits and Brad Fieger accounted for 2 of them. Boston College starter, Hunter Gordon pitched 6 1/3 scoreless innings to get the win, which was his first on the season and Jesse Adams tossed a scoreless 2 2/3 innings to record his first save of the season. Chris Diaz took the loss dropping his record to 3-4, meanwhile his ERA is down to 1.53. As I said last week, Diaz has deserved much better fate this season as someone with an ERA that low should not have a record under 500.

On Saturday, Miami's bats woke up for a game as they recorded twelve hits en route to a 5-0 win over BC. Bryan Radziewski was dominant once again throwing a complete game shutout. Radziewski gave up just 4 hits and struck out 8. He's been great all season and was yet again on Saturday. Alex Hernandez, Chris Barr, Brandon Lopez, and Dale Carey all had 2 hits apiece. Carey also drove in 3 of the 5 runs on the day. Also, eight of the nine hitters in the starting lineup recorded at least one hit. Bryan Radziewski improved his record to 7-1 and dropped his ERA to an amazing 0.95. It was also his second complete game shutout of the season.

Sunday was the rubber match between the Canes and Eagles and the Eagles would come out on top 3-2 in 11 innings. Miami's bats reverted back to not doing much as they only had four hits and Tyler Palmer accounted for two of them. Andrew Suarez had another solid outing going 8 innings and giving up just 2 runs and striking out 7. The game was scoreless until Miami struck for two runs in the top of the 7^th, but in the bottom of the 8^th Chris Shaw hit a two run homerun off of Suarez to tie the game. The game would remain tied at two until BC catcher Matt Pare hit a walk-off homer off of Aj Salcines.

Overall, it was a bad weekend for Miami, no doubt about it. Boston College was winless in the ACC, and they were able to win two of three against the Canes. This was not what the Canes needed after winning back-to-back ACC series for the first time all season and taking two of three from Clemson last weekend. Miami needed a sweep this past weekend and they didn't even win the series. The starting pitching was good enough to win all three games as Diaz, Radziewski, and Suarez all had good performances. Once again it was the bats that were the problem for Miami, as they've been all season. Not to beat a dead horse here, but the bats will have to improve if the Canes will have any chance to win come postseason time. The starting pitching is there, but the offense has a ways to go. Miami's record is now 29-18 and 11-13 in the ACC.

The Canes do not have any mid-week games this week, so next up is a three game series next weekend against St. Johns in Coral Gables.