After a 6-4 loss to Florida Atlantic on Tuesday night, the Miami baseball team returns home for its third straight big series in a row at Mark Light Stadium. Miami lost two out of three games to Florida two weeks ago to number four Florida and won the series versus Virginia last weekend.
North Carolina comes to Coral Gables ranked fourth in the RPI. Miami moved up to 156th in the RPI. After moving up about 100 spots following the series win over Virginia, Miami dropped three spots after the loss to FAU. North Carolina enters the weekend with 11 straight wins.
North Carolina has the best record in the ACC at 16-2, 3-0. Miami is in third place in the ACC Coastal tied with Duke at 3-0. Virginia Tech is also 2-1. Miami has the worst overall record in the ACC at 9-7. There could be another high scoring series after Miami and Virginia combined for 54 runs in three games last weekend.
North Carolina is 17th nationally with 169 runs scored and Miami is 29th with 150. The Tar Heels have a far better pitching staff. North Carolina is incredibly balanced, ranking 17th with a 3.60 earned run average. Miami is 123rd nationally with a 5.47 ERA. Sophomore Jason Torres and freshman Daniel Cuvet lead Miami.
Cuvet is 26th nationally batting .455 and Torres is 39th at .441. North Carolina doesn't have any hitters in the top 100 nationally, but are 23rd with a .323 batting average. Cuvet is also fifth nationally with nine home runs. Cuvet has more than filled the big shoes of Yohandy Morales at third base.
Eight hitters for North Carolina have a .300 batting average. Folger Boaz has been the best pitcher for North Carolina with a 2-0 record and 2.11 ERA in four starts. Jason DeCaro has started four games with a 3.66 ERA and four other pitchers have two or more starts this season for North Carolina.
Gage Ziehl has gotten off to a slow start for the second straight season. Ziehl has been the Friday night starter for the first month of the season. Rafe Schlesinger has been the Saturday night starter for Miami and Herick Hernandez the Sunday starter. Hernandez has been Miami's best starter with a 2.91 ERA and 1.18 WHIP.