Canes Fall in Series Opener at BC

Canes Fall in Series Opener at BC

by David Villavicencio

BRIGHTON, Mass. – The Miami Hurricanes dropped the opening game of their weekend series at Boston College Friday night.

The Canes (23-14, 14-13 ACC) had just two hits while the Eagles (18-21, 7-18 ACC) scored 10 runs with two outs on their way to a 13-0 win over Miami inside the Harrington Athletics Village.

“We chased a lot of pitches. The scouting report was that he was a guy that missed up out of the zone and we helped him,” head coach Gino DiMare said. “We chased too many pitches up out of the zone, we didn’t hit the fastball very well and he’s mainly a fastball guy. The bottom line is we just didn’t do a very good job all the way around to set the tone. Pitching, we’ve got to do a better job of starting pitching. We can’t have guys start the game and we’re down a bunch of runs. We didn’t do anything, offensively, defensively or pitching.”

BC got some timely two-out hitting in the bottom of the first that led to a big inning against Miami starter Alejandro Rosario. Cleanup hitter Luke Gold singled to put runners on first and second and Jack Cunningham’s RBI single up the middle drove in Cody Morissette to give the Eagles a 1-0 lead. Vince Cimini followed with a bloop single that drove in Gold and Dante Baldeli hit a three-run homer to center that put Boston College ahead by five runs.

An inning later, Boston College scored again with two outs when Cody Morissette singled to right to send Sal Frelick home from third. Gold followed with an RBI single to center that pushed in Morissette and gave BC a 7-0 lead.

“We haven’t been good with two outs this year,” DiMare said. “We haven’t been good with runners in scoring position, pitching-wise. We’ve got to do a better job. I mean it’s just very frustrating. These are things that we’ve got to get better at. We’ve been emphasizing them, talking about them, working on them. But the end of the day if we can’t execute it, that’s why you have a season like we’re having right now. It’s inconsistent and we don’t have much time left. We’ve got to clean it up.”

The Eagles picked up another run in the fourth, as Cunningham had a one-out infield hit that drove in Morissette after the BC second baseman led off the inning with a double to left-center. Rosario did not get out of the inning, turning the ball over to reliever Nicholas Regalado with two on and two outs in the fourth. The true freshman starter allowed eight runs (seven earned) on 12 hits over 3.2 innings pitched.

In the bottom of the fifth, Boston College plated its ninth run of the night. Nine-hole hitter Daniel Baruch led off the inning with a double and advanced to third on a passed ball, putting him in position to score on a sacrifice fly by Frelick.

Boston College reached double-digits in the seventh, as right fielder Gabe Rivera dropped a line drive by Frelick. The RBI single drove in Baldelli to make it 10-0. Regalado struck out the next batter before handing the ball over to Alex Munroe and the lefty surrendered a two-out three-run homer to Morissette that gave BC a 13-0 advantage.

Miami and Boston College are back in action Saturday at 3 p.m.