Where things stand for Miami Hurricanes baseball after dropping NC State series
The Miami Hurricanes baseball team sustained its first significant setback in over a month and a half with its series loss at NC State this weekend.
After winning the series opener 11-9 in thrilling fashion Friday afternoon, Miami lost the second game of its Friday doubleheader 13-6 before also dropping the series finale 12-7 on Saturday night.
It ended Miami’s run of six consecutive weekend series victories, including five straight Atlantic Coast Conference series wins.
With two weeks left in the regular season, here’s a snapshot of where things stand for the Hurricanes.
Miami should be an NCAA tournament team, but any slim hopes of hosting a regional are all but gone. After dropping two of three games to NC State, Miami is now 33-14 on the season and 13-11 in ACC play.
UM had been trending upward heading into the series with the Wolfpack and was consistently projected to be a No. 2 seed in regional play, giving the Hurricanes an outside chance to potentially host in the regional round with a strong finish to the season and a run in the ACC tournament.
That’s likely out of the picture now.
Miami has fallen to No. 34 in the RPI rankings through games played Saturday. The Hurricanes have seven regular-season games remaining — a Tuesday midweek game against FIU (No. 210 RPI), a home series with Louisville (No. 101 RPI) this week and a series at Florida State (No. 8 RPI) next weekend — before the ACC tournament. Miami enters Sunday ranked fifth in the ACC standings, just behind FSU. The top four teams get a double-bye in the ACC tournament and would immediately reach the quarterfinals.
UM realistically would need to sweep through FIU and Louisville, win the series at FSU and probably make some noise in the conference tournament to make its resume worthy enough to be in the conversation of being a top-16 national team.
The bullpen remains a cause for concern. Pitching was expected to be the Hurricanes’ weak point this season, with their bullpen being a complete unknown entering the campaign.
But Miami’s relief corps has struggled to find any semblance of consistency throughout conference play.
Miami’s bullpen has a 7.26 ERA in ACC action, giving up 68 earned runs over 84 1/3 innings over 24 games. While the group has 13 instances of holding opponents to one earned run or fewer — including five when asked to cover at least three innings — the bullpen also has given up five runs or more in seven of 24 league games.
One of the few standouts in the group this season has been senior Lyndon Glidewell, who has gone nine consecutive appearances spanning 11 2/3 innings without allowing a run and has allowed just three runs total in 16 innings of work in ACC play.
A key reinforcement did return this weekend in Nick Robert, who struck out the side in his season debut on Friday night.
The offense lost one of its top players for the near future in Daniel Cuvet, but the lineup has enough talent to offset his loss. Cuvet, Miami’s star third baseman, hasn’t played since the road series at Stanford that ended April 19.
First, the team said it was giving him a rest day on April 22 against FAU after the cross-country travel. Then, he missed the home series against California, per the team, due to wisdom teeth removal. And now he is sidelined indefinitely due to a stress fracture in his back.
Cuvet is one of Miami’s most feared hitters. He’s tied for the team lead in doubles (14), tied for second in home runs (12), second in on-base-plus-slugging (1.086), third in RBI (45) and runs scored (49) and sixth in batting average (.305).
But the Hurricanes’ lineup has rarely been the issue this season. Miami is averaging 8.7 runs per game on the season, including 6.3 runs per game in ACC play.
Outfielder Derek Williams (.394 average, 14 home runs, 61 RBI, 45 runs scored), catcher Alex Sosa (.316 average, 12 home runs, 53 RBI, 50 runs scored), second baseman Jake Ogden (.315 average, 51 runs scored, 11 stolen bases) is a solid trio to carry a lineup.
Outfielder Max Galvin is finding his groove as well after missing extended time to start the season. The redshirt senior has hits in nine of his past 11 games, including a go-ahead grand slam in the series-opening win against NC State on Friday afternoon and a four-hit effort in the loss on Saturday night.
Freshman Grabiel Milano is taking the bulk of the reps defensively at third base in Cuvet’s absence.
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