The Beast : Bring On Them ‘Noles

I can already feel the electricity. A packed house pumping, full of rowdy fans while two rivals go at it all weekend.

The No. 7 Seminoles are in town to take on the No. 11 Hurricanes and both teams by Sunday evening, both teams will have found out what they’re made of. A few wins for ‘The U’ and Miami can move up into the coveted top eight.

The Canes may be peaking at the right time, after taking two of three from a very good Tar Heels team this past weekend. Thankfully Miami now looks like a far cry from that team which stumbled out the gate to an early 5-7 record. The Canes had to deal with an early sweep by the Gators and head coach Jim Morris finding himself on the DL after having his gall bladder removed.

After the rocky start, some fans began chirping about Coach Morris, to which I was quick to say it was early in the season and that patience was the name of the game. Have some faith in a skipper that recently picked up his 800th win over seventeen seasons at Miami; an average of 47 wins a year. If anything, Morris’ absence proved his value even more.

It took this team a while to get used to the new bats. For those who haven’t been following the story, the NCAA mandated that the aluminum bats used by college teams but have the same response as wooden bats. In the past, Miami would put up gaudy numbers, even early in the season.

This year the Canes only scored double-digits twice in their first 26 games. Since then they’ve done it seven times.

Coach Morris always stresses that he wants his team playing their best ball as the seasons progresses and offensively there’s no doubt that this team has found their stride; a lot of which has to do with guys getting healthy.

Nathan Melendres is now leading the team in average after suffering from a hand injury earlier in the season and Michael Broad is contributing, back from a leg injury. You can’t have a consistent line up when guys are banged up and that lack of consistency wasn’t helping this team, either. Coach Morris told us on last week’s edition of allCanes Radio that he’d rather have a line up that works than sending those guys out there every night, but it’s been hard to do with so many injuries throughout the season.

Starting pitching hasn’t been a problem with this team. Steven Ewing may be the mid-week guy, but his numbers are outstanding as se’s 7-1 with a 2.49 ERA. Ewing has struck out 69 batters and only walked seventeen with opponents only batting .202 against him.

Bryan Radziewski, Eric Whaley and EJ Encinosa have also done a great job. B-Rad, a freshman, has done a great job as the Friday Night pitcher, which is a lot to ask out of a kid who was in high school last season. Getting the first ball of the weekend is no small task and Radziewski has done a great job.

In the pen, junior Travis Miller has found his role as a guy that mow guys down for a few innings, with opponents batting .086 against him. Sam Robinson has been getting his job done, too and Daniel Miranda has the closer role on lockdown with eleven saves on the year.

In my heart I believed this team would turn it around and while it looks like it has, the next few weeks will show whether they’re ready to compete for a trip to Omaha, or not. Florida State this weekend, an upcoming road trip to take on the amazingly-talented and highly-ranked Virginia Cavaliers. Win both those series and odds are you’re headed to the postseason as a favorite – which is light years from that 5-7 start.

IN OTHER NEWS : Today is the last day to hoist a cold one at the legendary UM Rathskeller – at least The Rat in its present form. After a $20M donation, a new Student Center will be built and a modern-day Rat erected. Still, for those old schoolers there were a lot of memories made at the old girl my Lake Osceola and the novelty that UM had its own “dive bar” was beyond cool.

The Rat even had good food, cold beer and proved a great place to watch a game. I spent my share of nights playing pool upstairs and even did some time in the DJ booth spinning tunes. I’m headed down this afternoon to say goodbye one final time and while I look forward to The Rat 2.0, it simply won’t be the same.

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