Three issues surfaced in Hurricanes’ loss to Boston College to open ACC play
The No. 24 Miami Hurricanes dropped their Atlantic Coast Conference series opener to Boston College 8-7 in 11 innings on Friday night at Mark Light Field.
After starting the season 10-0 against lesser competition, Miami (11-3, 0-1 ACC) has now dropped three of its past four games.
What’s went wrong on Friday? Here are three issues that have surfaced.
Holding a lead
Miami jumped out to a 5-0 lead on Boston College in the first two innings and were up 7-5 going into the ninth inning.
But that final lead quickly disappeared when Ryan Bilka, the Hurricanes’ closer, ran into trouble early. A Jack Toomey single, Esteban Garcia walk, Luke Gallo single and Kyle Wolff sacrifice fly in the first four batters he faced tied the game.
Bilka settled in from there to retire the side, but the damage was already done.
After both sides put up zeroes in the 10th, Lazaro Collera ran into early trouble on the mound for Miami in the 11th. A hit by pitch, single and walk loaded the bases. A dropped third strike against Julio Solier allowed Garcia to score from third base and give Boston College the go-ahead run.
Starters giving up that one big inning
AJ Ciscar had an efficient outing and once again looked the part of the Friday night pitcher, going eight innings, not issuing a walk and showcasing solid command.
But there was that one inning that put a damper on his final line.
After Miami jumped out to a 5-0 lead on a Daniel Cuvet single in the first that brought in two and a Dylan Dubovik three-run home run, Boston College (7-6, 0-1 ACC) pushed back with a four-run third inning against Ciscar, who pitched a career-high eight innings in the win. The Eagles strung together four consecutive hits, capped by Ty Mainolfi’s chopper down the third-base line going into left field for an RBI double before Nick Wang hit a three-run home run to left-center.
Ciscar settled in from there, retiring 12 consecutive batters and 17 of his final 19 to hold Boston College to just one run over the next five innings.
“He just has to work down a little more,” Hurricanes coach J.D. Arteaga said. He’s still just making some mistakes up. ... He’s been very mature and settles in. You’ve just got to try to avoid those innings.”
Situational hitting
The Hurricanes had 16 hits on Friday and had the leadoff batter reach base in six of 11 innings.
But they only had seven runs to show for it because their situational hitting fell flat.
Miami hit just .207 (6 for 29) with runners on base and .182 (4 for 22) with runners in scoring position.
They left 15 runners on base, including the game-tying run on third base in the 11th.
After dominating against Boston College’s starting pitcher AJ Colarusso — tagging him for six runs (five earned) on eight hits and a walk while just striking out twice over three innings — Miami scored just one run over the final eight innings and struck out eight times.
“When they adjusted, we didn’t adjust,” Arteaga said. “That middle guy [Boston College reliever Cesar Gonzalez], he kind of sped us up a little bit. If we take that same type of approach [as we did against Colarusso] and base hit him to death, I guess you could say, we would have had the same success.”
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