Baseball Travels to Miami to take on Hurricanes

After getting the week off thanks to a deluge of snow in Charlottesville, the baseball squad will be on the road this weekend in south Florida to take on a struggling Miami Hurricanes team.

Though nobody expected the Hurricanes to compete for the Coastal Division title or the ACC title, not many could have predicted the Canes would be 9-11 overall and just 3-3 in the ACC. Not to mention, Miami missed the NCAA Tournament last year for the first time in 44 years.

Though the 9-11 record is not great, 5 of their 11 losses have come in two run ball games, so they are likely closer than their record indicates.

At the plate the Canes are lead by Isaac Quinones and Freddy Zamora. The two are batting .333 and .288, respectively, with Zamora leading the team with 21 hits. Quinones has only started 12 of the 20 games but is leading the team in on base percentage and slugging percentage. As a team, they are batting .247 but have struck out a ridiculous 211 times; more than 10 times per game.

Freshman infielder Alex Toral was expected to be one of the top newcomers to the conference this season, but has struggled thus far hitting only .159 with 26 strikeouts and only 14 walks.

Even though the Miami offense has struggled, the pitching has been quite impressive. A team ERA of 3.20 and a batting average against of .224 has kept the Hurricanes in many games they probably did not deserve to be in. Saturday starter Evan McKendry has been the best thus far putting up a 2.54 ERA and holding batters to a .183 average while striking out 43 in just 28.1 innings.

After losing a hard fought series on the road at Duke to begin ACC play, UVa was able to bounce back last week taking two of three from Boston College. If the Cavaliers have aspirations of keeping up with Duke and North Carolina at the top of the Coastal, winning two of three this weekend would be crucial.