Baseball Drops CWS Opener to Florida
Miami315Florida
| LINESCORE | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
| UM | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 11 | 3 |
| UF | 0 | 0 | 1 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | X | 15 | 14 | 1 |
| PITCHING | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | |||||||
| W – L. Shore | 5.0 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 6 | ||||||
| L – A. Suarez | 3.1 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 1 | ||||||
OMAHA, Neb. –The Miami Hurricanes dropped their 2015 College World Series opener to Florida Saturday night, falling to the Gators, 15-3, at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha.
Miami jumped out to an early 2-0 lead thanks to sacrifice flies by junior All-American David Thompson in the first and third innings, but Florida struck for 11 runs in a fourth inning that saw the Hurricanes’ lead quickly evaporate.
Miami (49-16) will play Arkansas, who fell to Virginia 5-3 earlier Saturday afternoon, in a CWS elimination game on Monday at 3 p.m. ET.
Redshirt junior lefthander Andrew Suarez, who cruised through the first two innings of the game before running into trouble, was tagged for six hits and seven runs (four earned) in the loss.
“It’s a disappointing game,” head coach Jim Morris said. “The fourth inning says everything about the game. Everything that could go wrong went wrong.”
It was the No. 5 national seed Hurricanes who struck first Saturday, after a hit-by-pitch, bunt single and error loaded the bases.
Thompson’s sacrifice fly opened the game’s scoring, while his third-inning flyout moved him into a tie for second place in single-season RBI (89) and doubled Miami’s lead.
With his team ahead 2-0, Suarez (9-2) allowed the first two Florida batters of the third inning to reach on a walk and single. After retiring the next two consecutively, Suarez was called for a balk that forced in a run from third.
Suarez then induced a flyout from Florida’s dangerous Richie Martin to maintain Miami’s lead at 2-1.
But things unraveled for the Hurricanes in the fourth, as the first two Florida batters reached on a walk and two-error play by shortstop Brandon Lopez. The Gators (50-16) took advantage of the miscue, scoring 11 combined runs on nine combined hits off Suarez, senior righthander Sam Abrams and sophomore lefthander Danny Garcia.
“I definitely shouldn’t have thrown that. I had no play,” Lopez said of the play. “The ball skipped out of me. [With] my adrenaline [going], I threw to first and I shouldn’t have thrown it.”
Suarez departed after 3.1 innings in only his second loss of the season, despite a lack of hard-hit balls by Florida.
“I just fell behind the count and they got hits, they found the holes,” Suarez said. “But there’s nothing I could do about that.”
Miami was effective early against Florida righthander Logan Shore, but could not mount a comeback after falling behind. Shore (10-6) surrendered seven hits and three runs (two earned) in 5.0+ innings with six strikeouts.
First pitch for Monday’s game against the Razorbacks, slated for broadcast on ESPN2, 560 WQAM and WVUM 90.5, is set for 3 p.m. ET.
