After last Sunday’s loss to Florida, Miami head coach Gino DiMare referred to freshman pitcher Carson Palmquist as a “bright spot” after the lefty threw three shutout innings and struck out five batters in his first outing as a Hurricane.
Wednesday night against USF, Palmquist again threw two scoreless innings while surrendering just one hit.
DiMare had high praise for the 6’3 freshman after the win over USF.
“You can see he is very effective, righties or lefties, he gets a lot of bad swings from guys,” DiMare said.
Palmquist was suspended for the beginning of the season for a violation of team rules and last Sunday’s series finale against Florida was the first time he was available to pitch. After two outings, Palmquist says he will do whatever he has to ot help Miami win, which may include an increased role in important situations.
“It’s definitely one of the best feelings I’ve ever had,” Palmquist said. “I just love contributing to the team, even out of the bullpen and keeping the game close so we can have a chance to win.
“He is going to see more important roles. We knew this coming in, where we have to figure out where he is going to fit in, but it is going to be somewhere important in the latter part of the game,” DiMare said.
Despite Palmquist’s dominating performance, the rest of the pitching staff struggled, starting with Wednesday’s freshman starting pitcher Alex McFarlane. The 6’4 right-hander pitched the first two innings of the game and gave up two earned runs on five hits, striking out three batters while walking one.
“Right out of the gate, they were going after the fastball,” DiMare said. “I think you gotta get your off speed pitches over. I’ll have to look at the locations of those pitches, but they probably were pretty fat fastballs if I had to guess.”
McFarlane pitched two shutout innings against both Rutgers in Miami’s season opener and the first midweek game against Kent State, where the freshman pitched the first two innings. Against Florida, McFarlane gave up three earned runs on just 16 pitches and collected the loss for Miami.
“His first outing, watching that game back, he had great command of all his pitches against Rutgers,” DiMare said. “It’s early in his career. He is a guy that certainly has a high ceiling, a lot of potential. I thought him and all the pitchers had to do a better job of throwing off speed pitches for strikes.”
Freshman Jake Garland, who came in to relieve McFarlane, had a fair outing, with one hit, two walks and two strikeouts in 2.2 innings. Alex Munroe, another freshman pitcher, faced just four batters and gave up two hits and one earned run. Tyler Keysor, a senior reliever, also gave up two hits and two earned runs that allowed USF to tie the game.
DiMare criticized his team’s pitching overall after the game on Wednesday.
“We didn’t get the leadoff hitter, we struggled throwing our off speed pitches for strikes, the first seven innings we only got one leadoff hitter out.”
The team will face the Towson Tigers in a three-game series this weekend at Mark Light Field.