A common occurrence in many of Miami baseball’s losses this season has been rocky first innings, and this Friday against the Duke Blue Devils was no exception. The Hurricanes got blown out by the Blue Devils 13-3 and it all started in the first inning.
Miami’s starter, junior Griffin Hugus was off his game as soon as it started. The first Duke batter got a single off him and he walked the next. However, it seemed like he was going to get out of the inning unharmed with the ’Canes getting a double play. Unfortunately for them, the next five Duke batters got on base, three of which came by way of singles and two coming by way of hit by pitches. The top of the first finally came to a close after Miami first baseman, Todd Hudson, caught a line drive that came beaming to him, but when it was all said and done, the Blue Devils were up 4-0.
UM did not start fighting back until the bottom of the third inning when redshirt junior Max Galvin led off their inning with a solo homerun to make the score 4-1. The first pitch that Blue Devil pitcher Owen Proksch threw after the homer, clunked Hudson right in the back of the helmet. Hudson eventually came in to score for the ’Canes after a single by sophomore Daniel Cuvet brought him across home plate to bring the score to 4-2. The scoring for that inning would end with that as the final out came right after.
In the top of the fourth, the Blue Devils got one of their runs back after a groundout by Duke graduate student Ben Miller brought in senior Wallace Clark to score from third to increase their lead to 5-2. That would be Hugus’ final inning as well as he was taken out of the game prior to the Miller RBI for graduate student Carson Fischer.
The Hurricanes would bring the score back to within two in the bottom half of the inning as senior Dorian Gonzalez Jr. came in score after a throwing error by Proksch to make the score 5-3.
It seemed like Miami was just a bloop and a blast away from being back into the ballgame, but then the sixth inning came and along with it came Duke’s finishing blow. Just like the first inning, Miami got two outs rather quickly as they got a double play two batters into the inning. However, things went off the rails after that. Fischer was taken out of the game after he gave up a single and walk to the next two batters. He was replaced by graduate student Alex Giroux. Giroux threw just three pitches before he was taken out of the game. The first hit the batter and loaded the bases. The second was a strike and the third hit the next batter and brought in a run to bring the score to 6-3. Giroux was replaced by freshman left-hander, Michael Fernandez, whose outing was arguably somehow worse than Giroux. On the first batter he faced, he gave up a grand slam to make the score 10-3. Two pitches later, he gave up another homer to bring the score to 11-3. Finally, he hit the next batter and his day was done. The final Miami reliever of the inning was senior Jackson Cleveland, who got the final out of the inning after Duke sophomore Macon Winslow was thrown out going for a double.
The Hurricanes never got even a single run to cut the lead the rest of game while the Blue Devils tacked on two more in the ninth inning to make the final score of the game, 13-3. In the end, Miami went through eight pitchers throughout the game, giving 12 hits and hitting six Duke batters. Hugus got his fourth loss of the season.
After the loss, Miami baseball moves to 18-17 (ACC 4-9) on the season.