Gleanings From a Tough Series Loss

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shoeless

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This weeks polls are out and the consensus seems to be that the University of Miami baseball team still does not suck. Most polls dropped the Canes a spot or two, which makes sense considering they did lose the series. This is a far cry from many fans reactions after the Canes dropped two of three from the University of Florida this past weekend.

The scores of the games? 4-3 Gators, 7-2 Canes, 2-1 Gators, respectively.

As bad as everyone wants to jump on Jim Morris and claim he can’t coach anymore, or exaggerate the point that we just do not have any good athletic teams at this University anymore, people need to sit back and understand the game of baseball, especially early season college baseball. For starters, this Miami team was playing in Gainesville against a top five ballclub. The Canes dropped two games by one run each against a top five team but you’d of thought Miami just got swept by the University of Phoenix online. Even the really good teams lose series and midweek games. Last years Vanderbilt team, which ended up winning the College World Series, lost series to Mississippi State, Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas A&M, and South Carolina. That is five series losses. Five. I think they may have put those losses in the past. Now I am not saying this Canes team is 2014 Vanderbilt, but what I am saying is that even the best teams lose series.

And how about the positives? All the doomsday talk has hidden the fact that there were several things that came out of this series that were good. What about pitching that held Florida to eight runs combined over the weekend? And that is without ace Andrew Suarez throwing. How about freakin’ Ryan Otero?!!!!! Or what about Zack Collins bomb that is still going? We needed to see that power that will hopefully take off from here with the first one out of the way. What about Thomas Woodrey and Enrique Sosa? These guys pitched great.

It is obvious that we need the middle of our lineup to hit. If Collins-Thompson-Abreu aren’t hitting then we are going to struggle. On top of that, our table setters in Chester and Eusebio need to get on base. We have some big time run producers hitting in this lineup and our 1-2 hitters need to set the tone. This is obviously a big deal for most squads but Miami specifically relies on those really big bats to produce rather than being a quick, scrappy team. As the season goes on I think we will see this improve, especially since Chester was at prom a few months ago and Eusebio is just now becoming an everyday starter.

I saw people posting and tweeting that Miami baseball would never be good again, or that we will now be a number two seed somewhere in regionals. Talk about overreaction! Like I said in a post earlier, Miami took two of three from Florida last season and Florida ended up getting a national seed. There is a good chance that both Florida and Miami could end up national seeds. The schedule is a double edge sword for the Hurricanes. Sure we have to travel to Louisville, UNC, and Virginia, while getting FSU and Georgia Tech at home, which obviously puts a higher chance of losing, but we also have plenty of opportunities to get right into the national seed discussion with wins. Let’s see how this Miami team responds before we drop a hernia in frustration.

Now if we lose two out of three to Wright State, I may come back with a hernia.

Go Canes.
 
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I think some of the frustration (at least mine) stems from some bad baseball here and there. We basically ran ourselves out of a win on Friday night, sending Collins home on Abreu's double. Same thing on Michelangeli trying to stretch a single to a double. I don't question the aggressiveness, I question how good of a move those things were.

I question sticking with Mediavilla in the 9th on Friday night. I really think that throwing Garcia there would have been a smart move. He's your bellcow, your closer...make sure you use him to get it into extras.

And really--this discussion was had on here last year. The frustration and questioning of the moves we've made tend to be based on what we've seen in the past 5-6 years or longer, not off of one weekend series against UF. You've got to keep that in mind.

I didn't freak out over losing the series against UF, and didn't really freak out over the FAU loss mid-week, either. However--I didn't dismiss it. Those games count just as much at the end of the year when we're looking at getting a National Seed just as much as the ACC Tourney games do. It's a long season, and it's up to Morris and the team at-large to put together their best body of work possible.

So, if/when we come up short for a National Seed this time around, it won't be only because of a mid-week loss to FAU, but that in combination with other short-comings will put us wherever we belong in the postseason. This team still has a ton of time to atone for a thing like that, but they can't continue to say that this is a work in progress and ignore the issues at hand. We've got to get better. We've got to execute in crunch time.
 
I'm with you. Sending Collins home was awful. And yes Garcia should have been in. Good points.
 
Good article, better comments. We do run ourselves out of innings. Can't do that on the road and win. And we seem to do it early in games too.
 
Sorry, but it's tough watching Miami lose 18 of the last 24(IIRC) to UF. Miami owned them for years. I don't think being PO'd over the losses is overreacting. Throw in another early season loss to FAU and the critical glance is warranted.
 
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Good points all around. I'm actually as mad as anyone. I hate losing, especially knowing how talented this team is. But I was more trying to make the point that this team is going to be fine. I've made fun of FSU baseball for a long time now for winning titles in Feb, love calling Mike Martin "Mr. February." But I get the point. The main college baseball writers like Fitt and Rogers still think this is a top 10 team and I agree. I was just trying to add a little chill out humor. We better not lose to Wright St.
 
Bottom line, the first game of the series was thrown away by coaching blunders. Not something new. THAT is Morris Ball

When you give away at LEAST one third of the games, on stupid baserunning and pitching change foul ups, anytime you play good teams, you end up like.....Miami, a fringe top 20 team, and BBQ Regional loser.

That UF team is so over rated it's sickening. Well coached, and the middle infield is great, but they are nowhere near a top 10 team. Looked like a bunch of panzies out there.

Should have been an easy sweep.
 
So what everyone is saying is that the Miami A-Rods should have swept but lost the series instead. Like the football team, the A-Rods are capable of great things, but the coaching is holding them back.
 
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So what everyone is saying is that the Miami A-Rods should have swept but lost the series instead. Like the football team, the A-Rods are capable of great things, but the coaching is holding them back.

You used to be a good poster until you got this A-Rod obsession. It's kinda creepy.
 
So what everyone is saying is that the Miami A-Rods should have swept but lost the series instead. Like the football team, the A-Rods are capable of great things, but the coaching is holding them back.

You used to be a good poster until you got this A-Rod obsession. It's kinda creepy.

Standing up for the school to show some morals is creepy? This school's sports program has taken a turn for the worse and putting cheaters like A-Rod on a pedestal is part of the problem. I care about the Canes but rooting for them is becoming a very bad waste of time.
 
So what everyone is saying is that the Miami A-Rods should have swept but lost the series instead. Like the football team, the A-Rods are capable of great things, but the coaching is holding them back.

You used to be a good poster until you got this A-Rod obsession. It's kinda creepy.

Standing up for the school to show some morals is creepy? This school's sports program has taken a turn for the worse and putting cheaters like A-Rod on a pedestal is part of the problem. I care about the Canes but rooting for them is becoming a very bad waste of time.

So because Miami accepted a donation, quite sizable I might add, and named the stadium after said donor they're now putting him on a "pedestal"?
Com'on you're smarted than that.
 
Huh? The man's name is on a huge plaque outside the stadium. If that's not being put on a pedestal, we must have different definitions of the term. You should be smarter than that.
 
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It's not that we lost, it's the way we lost... For like the 6th straight year in a row, you can see the same **** from this team.
 
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