Continued from Part 1
The Canes come into the game against Dartmouth with some sporadic displays of hitting over the past month. Yasmani Grandal has continued his run of good hitting with just a small hiccup in the latter part of the ACC tournament. Harold Martinez has 19 homeruns and has been a consistent long ball hitter all year long for the Canes, we will need some good production out of him today. Look for Harold to get at least 2 hits and drive in a couple RBI's against Dartmouth, the same should be true for Yasmani Grandal.
The Canes have hit 67 homeruns over the past 34 games so their long ball potential is definitely there. What we need is to have the low end of the lineup remain consistent so we have solid hitting all the way around the batting order. Nathan Melendres has played very well recently and did exceptionally well in the ACC tourney, so hopefully Melendres should add some good support today. After being moved from lead-off to the eight spot in the lineup during the ACC tournament, Zeke Devoss countered with a monster home-run in the game against Boston College. Zeke should be in the lead-off spot today and we need him to get on base and get in scoring position immediately.
Eric Whaley is expected to throw for the Miami Hurricanes today. He got his first start against Florida State and is a 5 game winner this season. He has a 4.46 ERA so we need to make sure we do not give up that many earned runs, we need to keep the pitch count low with him and back him up in the field. Our relievers will play a big role in today's game as well. Sam Robinson gave up some late inning runs in the loss to Virginia although he has been excellent all season prior to that with less than a 1.00 ERA. Jim Morris has shuffled relievers in and out all season 1 inning at a time for the most part. Occasionally you get 2 innings out of a Canes reliever, but for the most part Jim Morris and J.D. Arteaga have kept a tight leash on the amount of time each reliever has spent in the game. Early on in the season they had good reason as the relief staff was disappointing, however near the end of the season they seem to have really stepped up and improved significantly. Once again the key is gonna be low pitch counts and low walks. If we put people on base we are gonna shoot ourselves in the foot, if we keep them off we should be in great shape. Pretty simple in theory but always difficult in postseason play.
Today's game should go pretty easy for the Canes, but we need it hit on all cylinders. Lets go CANES......
Gametime 4 pm. Coral Gable Florida.
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