Thursday, June 18, 2015

2015 College World Series: #4 Florida Eliminates #5 Miami

For the fourth time in six years, the Florida Gators have ended the Miami Hurricanes' season. Once again, it was another rout as the Gators dominated the Hurricanes 10-2.

Every single member of the Gators' starting lineup got a hit today. I will break down how each player did. Harrison Bader got things cooking early with a leadoff home run to deep center field to put the Gators up 1-0. He finished the night 2-4 with two runs scored and the lone RBI off of the homer. Behind him was the Capital One Player of the Game, Richie Martin, who went 3-5 with an opposite field home run and two runs scored.

In the three hole was Josh Tobias, who went just 1-5 but also had an RBI and scored a run. In the cleanup spot, the spectacular freshman JJ Schwarz mustered just one hit but came around twice to score. Behind JJ, the speedy Buddy Reed muscled up and left the yard for just his fourth home run of the season as he went 2-5. He had a team-high three RBI's and also scored twice.

The final Gator home run of the night came off of Peter Alonso's bat when he hit a two-run blast to left center in the top of the eighth. He finished the night 2-5 with two RBI's and a run scored. In the bottom of the order, Jeremy Vasquez, Mike Rivera, and Dalton Guthrie all managed one hit a piece. Vasquez was the only one of those three to come around and score.

The Gators again abused Miami's pitching as they banged out 14 hits and put up a three-spot in the first inning and a four-spot in the fifth inning. Miami had to use six total pitchers in this game after starter Enrique Sosa went just an inning. All but two of them gave up at least two runs.

Conversely for the Gators, their pitching was on point tonight. They got a great start out of true freshman Alex Faedo as he notched his sixth win of the season. In five innings, he gave up two runs on three hits, struck out a career-high seven batters, and walked four.

After Faedo's departure, sophomore Kirby Snead came in and threw three no-hit innings of relief while striking out three and walking none. In the ninth, sophomore Shaun Anderson came in and shut the door as he gave up just one hit and struck out two.

Once again the Florida Gators have shown who is the best team in the state of Florida. In five meetings against the Miami Hurricanes this season, Florida won four of them. In the College World Series, the Gators outscored the Hurricanes 25-5!

It was truly an amazing turnaround for the Gators after being shutout against Virginia on Monday. I do not know what head coach Kevin O'Sullivan said to his team, but it was enough to inspire four homers, 10 runs, and 15 hits. Let's hope this is a sign of things to come as Florida will face Virginia again this Friday. With a rejuvenated offense and ace Logan Shore on the mound, the Gators have a very good chance to win this game.

Game time is set for 3 p.m. on Friday, June 19th. If #4 Florida (51-17) wins they will need to beat Virginia (41-22) just one more time to advance to the College World Series Finals. If Florida loses, then it will be the end of what has been an incredible season.

*All stats accredited to NCAA.com

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.