Canes Sweep Yellow Jackets

Tough weekend to be a Canes fan. Yes, Miami dominated the 10th ranked Georgia Tech team, topping them 10-5, 15-5, and 9-3. However, the victories come with a heavy heart as the series initially had to be postponed due to the premature death of GT pitcher Michael Hutts.

You never want to play teams facing this sort of situation. Either they'll rally around their fallen teammate and beat you, or their heads will understandably not be in the game and the victory means little. There are more important things sometimes than W's and L's. My condolences go out to the GT family.

Game 1 saw the return of freshman Chris Hernandez's excellent form, as the lefty pitched 6 innings and allowed 3 earned runs. Not quite the dominating stuff of earlier this season, but certainly an improvement from his last outing. His outstanding arm was backed up by the Canes bats that had disappeared earlier this week. Five different players managed to collect 3 hits each.

Game 2 was played later that day and produced a fine outing from sometimes-maligned senior Enrique Garcia. The hero of the day was centerfielder Blake Tekotte who went 4-4 with 7 RBIs and 4 runs scored. The junior is the only player to have appeared and started in 34 Canes games this season and as of this morning was batting .390, leading the team in hits, runs and 2nd in on base percentage. He has certainly made a case for this team's offensive MVP.

The series finale saw Yonder Alonso blast his team-leading 9th home run of the season in a 9-3 victory. Miami tallied 16 hits to GT's 6 and once again began to look like the team that took over the top spot in the national rankings.

The loss to FAU will probably drop Miami out of the #1 position, but that sort of stuff is irrelevant in baseball. In football, being #1 is all that matters. Here, we just need to keep playing well heading into the final stretch of the season. Miami will now face FAU in a rematch of this week's upset defeat. The game will be in Boca on Wednesday night if you're interested.

What I'm really looking forward to isn't seeking revenge on the Owls. Instead I'm more interested in the weekend matchup with the probably new #1 ranked Florida State Seminoles. This weekend's series against GT was a good test for a team that hadn't faced all that many great teams, but it was a warmup (the sad situation considered) compared to what Miami will go up against in the Seminoles. Winning that series is crucial to our confidence. A sweep would be fantastic. We'll finally get to see if the Canes are for real (which I think they are). I say Miami wins 2 of 3.