The wheels have officially come off for the Canes, who went 0-4 since we last posted. Miami suffered a sweep at the hands of Florida State in Tallahassee, and returned in the midweek only to lose to Bethune Cookman. With about one month left in the season, the Canes are a woeful 16-20, and 6-12 in conference play. The ACC tournament includes the league’s top 12 teams, and the Canes are currently in 12th. The season may, mercifully, end very early this year.
If you are looking for any sign of hope, perhaps it’s the fact that Miami was at least competitive in their four losses in the last 7 days. FSU appears to be a top team this year, and the Canes lost that series by a total of 7 runs. The series was plagued with self-inflicted mistakes for Miami, which has become a recurring theme. It continued in the midweek, which culminated in Miami giving up all 6 runs to Bethune on either a walk or hit-by-pitch.
Louisville
Fri-Sun, Apr 19-21, Fri: 7:00PM, Sat: 8:00PM, Sun: 2:00PM; TV: ACCN/ACCNX
Louisville is 21-15 on the year, and just under .500 (7-8) in conference play. They are also having struggles, losing 4 of their last 5. Their lone ACC series win was a sweep of NC State earlier this month.
The Cardinals bats are much stronger than their pitching. Their team .321 average is the third highest in the conference, and they have 7 players above .300. The leader among these is Gaven Kilan, who has been extremely effective at the plate (.370 average), and is reliably getting on base for the Cardinals. Ryan McCoy (.330 average) leads the team with 9 home runs, but not far behind him is Luke Napleton (.341) with 8 of his own. The Cardinals are also very active on the basepaths. No team in the ACC has as many stolen base attempts (98), nor has anyone else been as successful (82). Given the Canes recent struggles on the mound and in the field, this could be a recipe for a lot of manufactured
runs.
Success at the plate has not been matched on the mound. The Cardinals’ 6.01 ERA is 10th in the conference. Sebastian Gongora is the expected Friday night starter. The tall left-handed transfer from Wright State has a 5.21 ERA but has had some tough outings recently. Saturday starter Evan Webster (3.48 ERA) has had the most success this year. Carson Liggett will likely round out the starting rotation. His ERA is just north of 7, and was chased from his last start after just 2 innings. Louisville has a couple decent arms out of the pen, but it’s not very deep, and so there is an opportunity for Miami hitters to get something going this week.
This may be hard to believe, but Louisville has been worse in the field than Miami has this season. The Cardinals have the worst fielding percentage and most errors of any team in the ACC.
Predictions
CLARKE
Woof. This team is a tough watch, and things have completely spiraled out of control this season. All of the promising signs from early in the season feel like a lifetime ago. I now wonder whether this team has any fight left in it, or whether we will just watch them stumble their way to the end of the season. Louisville is nothing special, but this is a tough matchup for Miami. I do not see how the Canes pitching will be able to stop the Louisville bats. The lack of fundamentals at the plate for Miami will make it hard to take advantage of an otherwise poor Louisville pitching staff.
The Canes drop 2 of 3 to Louisville.
PARASURAMAN
This is the worst Miami team I’ve ever seen. And the sad part is it is not that bad from a talent standpoint. The Coach and the players collaborate to make crippling mistakes that lose them games. That culminated this week against Bethune-Cookman in an overall embarrassing performance that gift-wrapped a win. Louisville is nothing to write home about, and the Canes are much better at the Light than on the road, but I just don’t see them consistently winning anything. They’ll keep fighting, it is the redeeming quality for this team. But they are who they are.
The Canes get swept.
Sebastian's Pub 