It was more of the same for the Canes, with a series loss to Georgia Tech capped by a 17-1 annihilation. Javi Salas, who threw the 23rd perfect game in Division 1 history, joined the CanesInSight Podcast to talk what’s next:
On the Saturday and Sunday pitching: The recipe for Miami is that the starting pitcher has to go deep into the game. You need to get to that Walters/Robert area of the game, the seventh, eighth, and ninth, where Miami does have answers. Unfortunately, when the starter doesn't go deep, it's difficult to win any game.
We’ve hit a point in the season now where we've seen some inconsistencies from Rafe and Herick. Rafe, they're hitting over .330 against him. If I were a pitching coach, I'm circling that. And then you look at Herick Hernandez, he's given up close to 30 extra base hits on the season. That is a large number. Those Sunday games are usually the swing games in series, as evidenced by this weekend. You’ve got to make sure you have a guy that, number one, can pitch you into that fifth and sixth inning. And number two, can keep the game close.
We see a lot of teams where starting pitching isn't necessarily their forte. Sunday games are usually a battle of attrition. Who has the freshest bullpen? Who can put more guys on base? Who can command more of a lead? So those two guys have sort of hit a wall.
From Rafe's standpoint, he hasn't pitched this deep into a season ever in his life. It's tough, after a nice win on Friday night, to go into your Saturday game and not get any length out of your starter. It taxes your bullpen. And as we've noted, Miami just doesn't have the bullpen to outlast teams in these sorts of situations. That bleeds into Sunday and we all know what happened on Sunday.
On the decline of the hitting, which ranks 11th-13th in the ACC in most major categories: The first couple of weeks of the season, we saw Blake Cyr, Jason Torres and Daniel Cuvet carrying this lineup. It was three guys. When you have those three guys clicking at the same time, which the Canes did, it can mask a lot of issues. We saw a three-headed monster that hit a ton of home runs, got a ton of extra-base hits and drove in a ton of runs. The rest of the lineup was just along for the ride.
The numbers don't lie. It’s a 14-team league. Miami's at the bottom third of all those offensive categories. So where did we go wrong? Well, number one, I think the absence of Blake Cyr played a huge role in this. As soon as he got hurt, we saw the offensive numbers fall off a precipice. We saw Jason Torres start to struggle. Daniel Cuvet came down to earth a little bit. Granted, he's picked it back up.
The bottom of the lineup has been kind of a revolving door. We haven't really seen an everyday shortstop. The first base situation was fluid this weekend with Jason Torres. Haven't gotten the same production out of the catching position with Perez and Scanlon. Lorenzo Carrier has been in and out of the lineup, as has Lucas Costello. It’s been difficult for Coach Fenster and for JD to put together a lineup every single day that makes sense and can help those guys at the top of the lineup that are really doing their part.
This is a league where offense has taken off. Teams are hitting over .300 and slugging all over the park. It’s a nationwide trend. You’ve got to hit the ball and score runs to win games. Miami, right now, is just not in a place to do that. They have not shown that, number one, the home run pace was sustainable. And number two, they weren't necessarily all that great at manufacturing runs. A lot of the close games were going the opposite way, just because Miami couldn't get runners over, couldn't bunt guys, couldn't hit a sac fly in a key situation.
So all in all: we had a three-headed monster at the beginning of the year. We lost one of those guys. The other two, Cuvet and Torres, got pitched significantly differently in the ACC slate. It's a tough conference, but Miami didn't do enough to manufacture runs to stay close in games.
And then you have a 17-1 game on Sunday. Miami gets one hit. That's a product of not necessarily being ready to play. Georgia Tech is playing with their hair on fire. They're trying to make a Regional. They have everything to gain. That performance on Sunday just encapsulates everything that's gone wrong with the Canes the last six or seven weeks.
On the FAU game, which he called from the booth: FAU has been a thorn in our side this season. Miami lost the first two games on the road, and have now evened the series 2-2. It was a tough game. FAU jumped out to a 2-0 lead.
The game wasn't very well played on either side. I think the coaching staff will tell you that. Squeaked out with a win there due to some FAU blunders and errors and some pitching mishaps. A nice win against FAU, but it didn't necessarily bleed into the weekend as many would have hoped and expected.
On Brian Walters: Great performance by Brian Walters [on Friday]. In a season where there hasn't been a lot of bright spots, Brian Walters has solidified himself as that premier arm in the back of the bullpen. A guy who bounced back from Tommy John last year. There’s no perfect science to that injury. Some guys come back in 12 months, some guys take more like 16-18 months. Brian Walters at 14-15 months is really coming into his own.
The fastball velocity is on the uptick. The slider is really good. The next evolution is going to be, “Can you pitch back to back days? Can you pitch more than once in a weekend?” But the stuff is certainly on the right trajectory. This guy is probably going to be the opening day closer next year, if you had to ask me right now.
On the young players he wants to see more of against BYU: We have a freshman pitching staff that we haven't necessarily seen a whole lot of. I'm looking at Chris Diaz. I'm looking at Jordan Vargas, Brandon Oliveira. Three guys that have had success in some spurts. These are the kinds of weekends you want to take the training wheels off those guys and see what you have. “Do you profile as a starting pitcher? Do you profile as a reliever? Are you the kind of person that I can send to summer ball with a list of items that I want you to work on?"
I did not have a very successful freshman season. ERA over five, got hit all over the park. Got sent to summer ball. It was really my first time being away from home. It was like seven weeks in the Virginia Valley League. I hated it. It was tough. I was 18 years old. I was by myself. I was living in a motel. But it was a tremendous experience for my career to understand, “Hey, this is who I am as a pitcher. This is how I get guys out. This is my key to success. These are my strengths, my weaknesses.” Two or three years later, I realized that was a transformative experience for me. In these next couple of weeks, we'll see some of those freshmen get in there. I want to see Jordan Vargas, Brandon Oliveira and Chris Diaz. I want to know: "This is what they do well. This is what they need to work on. This is what I profile them to do in 2025."
