Miami Hurricanes baseball just hit the RPI sweet spot. Now they must maintain down stretch
With eight games to go in the regular season, the University of Miami baseball program is right where it wants to be — maintaining its mojo yet rising where it counts.
Miami stayed at No. 6 in Monday’s newly released D1Baseball and Baseball America rankings and is at No. 5 in the Collegiate Baseball poll and USA Today coaches poll. But its RPI soared seven spots to No. 7 of 301 NCAA Division I teams.
And that’s exactly where the Canes (35-12, 17-7 Atlantic Coast Conference) need to be as they head to the finish line before the ACC tournament May 24-29 at Truist Field in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“We want to keep this going,’’ Gino DiMare told the Miami Herald during a Zoom interview Sunday after UM’s three-game series sweep of North Dakota State. “Certainly, all the wins matter now. We’re trying to put ourselves in a position at the end of the year hopefully where you give yourself a chance to host [an NCAA regional].
“We’re in that position. We’ve got to finish strong.’’
NCAA regional
Unless the Canes completely unravel, they appear headed to host an NCAA regional in Coral Gables for the first time since 2016, which was the last time Miami reached the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. Miami won national championships in 1982, 1985, 1999 and 2001.
Though UM would be a No. 1 regional seed should it host the first round (June 3-6) in Coral Gables, a top-eight national seeding (16 teams are now designated national seeds) is the number for which programs strive because it means the Canes would host in the second-round super regionals (June 10-12 or 11-13) should they win their regional. The eight super regional winners advance to the College World Series that begins June 25.
Last year, the Canes were eliminated by South Alabama in the Gainesville Regional before they even got the chance to play the Florida Gators. Florida was eliminated in its own regional.
This year, college baseball analysts project the Gators (29-18, 11-13 Southeastern Conference) playing in Coral Gables for the regional.
UCF next
UM’s next-to-last midweek game is 6 p.m. Wednesday at home against UCF (28-19, 11-7 American Athletic Conference). The Knights defeated the Hurricanes 10-5 on March 16 in Orlando.
The next weekend series begins Friday at Florida State (28-17, 13-11).
After that, it’s Florida Gulf Coast ( 29-18, 14-10 Atlantic Sun) at home next Tuesday before ending the regular season May 19-21 against the ACC’s Notre Dame (28-10, 13-8).
DiMare acknowledged that UM’s four-game losing streak to end April in the long run could be a positive, now that the players know they can dig themselves out and quickly resume their winning ways.
“We’ve been pretty consistent all year long,’’ DiMare said, “and then we had that little patch which I think everybody has got to go through. You gotta face adversity. That’s why I liked [Sunday’s] game [against North Dakota State]. We fell behind late. Losing today’s game would have been a jolt, would knock us down certainly in the RPI.
“We still have games to play — eight games. Big games coming up. UCF, no bigger. They beat us at their place earlier in the year. We have two midweek games left plus two weekend series left. They’re all very big if we want to control our destiny of playing here at home, which would be nice.’’
▪ Miami third baseman Yohandy Morales on Monday was named the ACC Player of the Week as well as one of six National Players of the Week by Collegiate Baseball. Morales, hitting .346, was 3 for 4 Sunday with 4 RBI and two home runs. He was 10 for 15 with three homers and nine RBI over the weekend.
This story was originally published May 9, 2022 at 1:42 PM.
