Weekend recap: Deacons drop series at Miami
Wake Forest’s baseball team needs to figure some things out with its bats.
The Deacons dropped two of three games at Miami this weekend. It drops Wake Forest (24-13, 9-9 ACC) back to .500 in league play with four series remaining.
The first two games of the series were 3-1 games, each team winning one. Miami won the series finale 8-0.
“We’re just putting too much pressure on our pitching right now. We haven’t been scoring runs, and everybody feels that,” coach Tom Walter said on Sunday via news release. “They hit a two-run homer with two outs, and all of a sudden, the dugout gets deflated and our guys feel like they can’t come back from that right now.
“That’s disappointing because we have a better offensive team than that. We’re obviously in a funk right now and have been for a while now. We need to find a way to get out of it. I probably need to change things up and play different guys.”
Here are quick recaps of each game from this weekend:
Miami 3, Wake Forest 1
On Friday, the Hurricanes got a run in the fifth inning and two in the sixth, while Wake’s only run came in the seventh.
Chris Levonas (4-1) allowed all three of Miami’s runs in 5 1/3 innings. He only gave up three hits and two walks but those proved costly. The first run scored on a groundout; the other two were on a double by Derek Williams.
Marcelo Harsch pitched the other 2 2/3 innings. He allowed two hits and had two strikeouts.
Wake Forest had seven hits and walked five times. The only run scored on a single by JD Stein.
Rob Evans (7-1) started for Miami and allowed the Deacons’ run. He allowed seven hits and two walks in 6 2/3 innings.
Wake Forest 3, Miami 1
On Saturday, the Deacons scored all three runs with two-out hits — the first two by Kade Lewis — to even the series.
Lewis’ two-out single in the fourth was the game’s first run, driving in Javar Williams after he led off the inning with a single. Lewis had a two-out single in the sixth that drove in Luke Costello from second base.
Matt Conte gave Wake Forest a three-run lead with an RBI single in the eighth.
Miami’s only run came in the eighth on Daniel Cuvet’s RBI single. That came against Evan Jones, who relieved Troy Dressler.
Dressler (5-1) pitched six shutout innings, allowing just two hits and two walks. He had four strikeouts. Jones went 2 2/3 innings, allowing that run in the eighth and three walks. Jones exited with two outs in the ninth, with Will Ray recording a strikeout to end the game.
Miami 8, Wake Forest 0
On Sunday, Miami scored in every inning between the third and seventh, while the Deacons only had four hits.
The Hurricanes scored five runs against Cameron Bagwell (2-1), who went 4 1/3 innings. He gave up eight hits.
Blake Morningstar replaced him and gave up the other three runs, across two innings of work. He gave up four hits and a walk. Ryan Bosch had a scoreless 1 1/3 appearance, while Zach Johnston got the final out on the mound for the Deacons.
Wake’s hits were by Costello, Dalton Wentz, Boston Torres and Blake Schaaf. It’s the fourth shutout loss of the season for the Deacons.
