It was another wild weekend at the Light, with the Canes taking two out of three games from #15 North Carolina. Cane alum Javi Salas, who threw the 23rd perfect game in D1 baseball history, joined the CanesInSight Podcast to recap the series and look ahead to FIU. Below is a summary of my conversation with Javi:

DMoney: It feels like a repeat of the show we did last week. Disappointing midweek. Obviously, last week they won. This week, they didn't. But scary midweek performance. Then beating the #15 team in a tough series where the ball was flying out of the ballpark. It seems like we're seeing some patterns with this team.

Salas: A lot of these games are 50/50 games for the Canes. What you see is an exciting brand of baseball, whether on the good side or bad side. Friday, the ball's flying out of the park at an exponential rate. We get a mercy rule game.

Saturday, really, really well pitched game, 1-1, bottom of the ninth inning, Dorian Gonzalez with a walk-off blast to center field.

Then Sunday, you get the opposite side of the coin where the Canes get mercy ruled themselves. The wind was howling, balls flying out, North Carolina hits seven home runs and they mercy rule the Canes. So a little bit of everything, but a really exciting weekend and a big, big time series win against a top 15 team.

DMoney: Outstanding pitching performances on Friday and Saturday from Ziehl and Rafe Schlesinger. I was there for Ziehl, complete game with the mercy rule finish. He was throwing strikes and competing. And then Rafe missed a lot of bats on Saturday. Should we expect ups and downs from those two or are they starting to round into form?

Salas: When you go into a Friday series, whether you're getting a great performance or not, you want your guy to extend his outing to preserve that bullpen. We've seen the Miami bullpen is definitely the weak link of this team right now. So Gage did a great job on Friday night. Pitching to contact, getting the guys back into the dugout, getting that offense rolling.

There was one inning that I really want to speak on. Gage gets out of a bases loaded jam and only gives up one run. A beautiful job of a starting pitcher just mitigating damage. It was a 5-0 game at that point, gives up one, offense gets back into the dugout, scores some more runs for him and then he cruises the rest of the outing.
Rafe’s outing was a little bit different in the sense that there was a rain delay. He comes back, had a little noise on set, but he shuts these guys down.

Herick Hernandez struggled a little bit on Sunday. The wind was blowing out straight to center field. A couple home runs get out. But it was a 5-4 game. The Canes
had a chance and then you bring in the bullpen. Unfortunately, the game got out of control in the fifth and sixth innings.

DMoney: Let's talk about the bullpen, good and bad. On the good side, do you think that we found a setup man and a closer going forward with Walters and Robert?

Salas: I certainly think so. What I saw on Friday and Saturday from those two guys, that's going to be the formula for the Canes. Starting pitching has to get you to the sixth and seventh innings.

You have Nick Robert at the end of the game, and he's good for three to five outs. Who's gonna be that bridge? That's going to be Brian Walters. Tommy John's an imperfect science. They always say it’s a year to 18 months. In that 12 to 18 month period, there's a lot of ups and downs. Earlier in the week, we saw Walters throw and his velo wasn't exactly the same. On Saturday night, he was throwing hard. Good breaking ball for strikes.

Obviously, we know we have in Nick Robert. He's solidified himself as this team's closer. So at least from the setup and closing role, I think we know what we have. It's just about getting to those guys.

DMoney: The rest of the bullpen had some struggles. You mentioned these are young guys for the most part. Starters in high school making that adjustment. We're getting closer to the meat of ACC play with some road games coming up. What needs to happen with that pen?

Salas: Coach Gutierrez and Coach Arteaga have their work cut out for them trying to figure it out with the pieces they have. We have some guys on the shelf that are hurt. There's some talk about those guys possibly coming back in the next couple of weeks. But with what we have right now, it's certainly a puzzle.

Sunday, the game was close. It's five to four. Fifth inning leadoff walk. They bring in reliever Myles Caba, who walks in a run. The game spiraled out of control.
As a coach, you gotta make sure you know what you have in your guys when you put them out there. Right now, middle relief is just a big gray area for the Canes. We've seen a lot of up and down performances.

Pitching is tough, man. You're the lonely man out there. There's no one there to save you. You got to figure your way out. One thing that we need to see going forward is just throwing strikes. We've seen the middle relief throwing a lot of balls and getting behind in the count. When you get behind in the count, UNC is a Top 15 team. They're going to take advantage, and they did Sunday.

DMoney: Harold Martinez, former great third baseman for the Canes, said that as Cyr goes, the team goes. Cyr’s confidence is such a big part of this team and this offense. On Friday, every single ball he hit seemed to fly off the bat. Two home runs and some really loud outs. What are you seeing from Cyr now that he's gone through that early slump?

Salas: Cyr has bad intentions when he swings. Four pitches into the game on Friday night, he hits one off the scoreboard. You just tied your spikes, you haven’t even broken a sweat and you're down two runs because Blake Cyr went off the scoreboard.

He's definitely the straw that stirs the drink. You look at the energy he brings. He's always jumping around. He's lively. When you start a game off with a home run off the scoreboard, the dugout is jazzed up and they're on fire.

DMoney: Cyr got some burn in left field as well.

Moving on to Cuvet, you said last podcast that they were gonna start pitching to him different. We saw that this weekend. No big hits, some walks, some strikeouts. What do you see from Cuvet as he adjusts to a new way of getting pitched around?

Salas: He’s definitely circled on scouting reports. The evolution is now, “Okay, I know how they're pitching to me. I know I'm going to get only one pitch to hit. I know I'm only going to get one fastball in the zone.” It's a tough adjustment.

These are the ups and downs of a freshmen season. This is a guy who's going to learn. He's going to get better. This weekend was a ”Welcome to the ACC” type of moment where they're throwing him a lot of breaking balls, a lot of stuff on the outer half of the plate. They don't want him to get his hands extended and hit the ball out. I fully expect Daniel Cuvet to break out of the slump.

DMoney: I want to talk about the guy who hit cleanup this past weekend, Dorian Gonzalez. Belen grad. Huge walk-off home run on Saturday, probably been our fourth-best position player behind the Big Three. What have you seen from his development?

Salas: From a physical perspective, he doesn't look like a fourth batter. But what Dorian brings is a ton of experience. He looks very calm in these tight situations and clutch moments. We’ve seen him come up with huge home runs this year. Grand Slam against Florida. Huge home run against Virginia on Sunday. And then this walk-off homer against UNC on Saturday night.

The cool thing about Dorian is he’s been written off. They've always talked about who is going to replace Dorian. He’s like a ****roach. He just sticks around and grinds. He plays hard. He's got a lot of passion. He loves the program. His father is a former Miami Hurricane baseball player as well. That's a Miami guy.

DMoney: Moving on to another hero on Saturday, Jason Torres. Cuvet gets so much attention and Cyr got hype coming into the year. But when you look at Torres' numbers, he's as good or better than both those guys. Does not look the part like Cuvet, but the results are outstanding. What do you see from Torres?

Salas: Torres' home run on Saturday was one of those things where, as a pitcher, I was kind of shuddering. It was a 3-0 count and he gets a green light. It’s a fastball in the outer third of the plate, and he hits an absolute rocket missile dead center field like he got all of that. It was probably the hardest hit ball I've seen this year at the Light. As a pitcher you're thinking, “OK, it's 3-0 count. It's a 1-0 game. I'm just going to groove one in there. He's not going to swing.” We've seen Hurricane teams in the past that have been extremely patient in those situations.

The switch has turned. Darren Fenster trusts his guys. He says, “If you get a good pitch to hit, unleash.” That's something you see at professional levels. You trust the meat of your order.

I'm a big Jason Torres fan. Dade County legend, had a tremendous prep career before going to the University of Miami. He played behind Yo-Yo at third and CJ Kayfus at first base. He started the season batting seventh, has shot his way up through the lineup. He's slugging .821, OBP close to .500. His OPS is through the roof. This guy's got the goods. He protects Daniel Cuvet in this lineup. As the season wears on, you're going to see Cyr, Torres, and Cuvet pitched differently. Who else is going to step up?

DMoney: I want to talk about Jake Kulikowski because he's the one you mentioned last podcast. You wanted to see more Kulikowski and he goes and hits a big home run on Sunday. Why have you been so consistent in saying this guy needs to see more at bats?

Salas: The meat of your order is all right-handed batters. We need some left-handed pop. We see Scanlon getting more and more at bats. Now you see Kulikowski making his way into the lineup.

The freshman fall is really difficult. You get into University of Miami, you get into a new weight program, you're taking classes, you have study hall, your schedule is just completely thrown off. You get into the spring, you finally get a chance to breathe and, all of a sudden, boom, season starts. You're facing high quality pitching and the world is moving fast.

You have to take a breath with some of these freshmen and say, “OK, look, first couple weeks, get your feet wet, understand what it's like to play high D1 baseball. Let's get into the ACC slate.” You just need to build these guys up. You got to build up their confidence, get them in situations where they can be successful.

These guys are going to struggle. They're going to strike out. You look at Jake Kulikowski’s average. .222. As an outsider, you see the box score. Why are we playing this guy? But he's a really high prospect from the Tampa area. Prep superstar. Let's see what we got in this guy. Give him regular at-bats. Let him face lefties and righties. Let him work his way through these struggles. And he gets rewarded on Sunday hitting his first home run. He hit a double, too. So the engine starts rolling a little bit. These guys get more and more comfortable. I fully expect Jake Kulikowski to be a factor into April and then late May in ACC play.

DMoney: I'm not going to talk about the weekend series coming up (Notre Dame) because we don't know what's going to happen with snow. It seems like the real key is these midweeks. What can you tell me about the FIU game and just what it means and what Miami needs to do to win?

Salas: When I was at Miami, we didn't play these games against FIU. I think it's great that the rivalry was renewed. It’s a great game for fans.

The RPI is starting to look much better. Your RPI is going to take care of itself if you win your ACC games. What keeps you out of the tournament, unfortunately, is your performance in midweeks. When Coach Morris's career was winding down, the team wasn't doing that well in midweeks. It was one of the factors that kept them out of the NCAA Tournament. The committee is looking at this kind of stuff.

So it starts on Tuesday. Let's see if we can pack the Light, get some Canes fans out there for the crosstown rivalry against FIU.

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