Late Flurry Leads Hurricanes Past Coastal Carolina, 5-1
May 1, 2004
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – Alex Blanco earned his first career win out of the bullpen as fourth-ranked Miami scored four runs late for a 5-1 win over Coastal Carolina in front of 1,423 fans at Mark Light Field Saturday night.
Blanco’s first career win came after pitching one inning in relief of starter Cesar Carrillo, who left the game with the score tied at 1-1 after pitching six innings. Carrillo gave up six hits and one earned run in the no decision.
Chiqui Chirino pitched a perfect eighth inning and Danny Gil a perfect ninth inning to close out the Hurricanes 32nd win of the season. Miami (32-9) remained perfect with its 11th weekend-series win of the season.
Coastal Carolina opened the scoring in the third inning with a RBI ground out by designated hitter Mike Costanzo.
The Hurricanes tied the game at 1-1 in the fourth inning on Richard Giannotti’s RBI ground out to first base. The RBI ground out scored Brian Barton who led off the inning with a triple, his third of the season.
Brendan Katin provided the game-winning RBI in the seventh inning with a single up the middle that scored Erick San Pedro, who had led off the inning with a single.
Miami capitalized on Coastal Carolina mistakes in the eighth inning to put the game out of reach. Lead off walks to Barton and Giannotti got the inning started for the Hurricanes. Roger Tomas, who led UM with two hits, then lined a single over the head of a diving left fielder to score Barton.
Tomas was called out on the play after passing San Pedro between first and second base, after San Pedro had waited to see if the Coastal Carolina left fielder would be able to catch the fly ball.
The Hurricanes would score their final two runs of the inning on a wild pitch and a balk from Coastal Carolina hurler Byron Binda.
Coastal Carolina was led offensively by first baseman Brett Gordon who went 3 for 4. Steven Carter took the loss to fall to 7-2 on the season. He pitched seven innings and allowed three runs on eight hits and struck out five, while throwing 119 pitches.
Miami and Coastal Carolina wrap up their series with a 1 p.m. contest at Mark Light Field Sunday, May 2.
