Miami baseball hosts Lafayette riding 5-game winning streak

The Miami Hurricanes baseball team hosts Lafayette for a four-game weekend series starting Friday at 7 p.m. The Hurricanes have started the season on a five-game winning streak after sweeping Lehigh last weekend and beating Central Florida on Tuesday and Indiana State on Wednesday.

The bats have led the way for the Hurricanes thus far this season. Through these first five games, the Hurricanes have scored the third most runs in the country (71), behind fellow ACC contenders Virginia and Georgia Tech.

Seven Miami batters have hit a home run so far, with Derek Williams and Alex Sosa tying for the team lead with three dingers each. Williams leads with nine RBI while Alonzo Alvarez leads in batting average (.636) and OPS (2.169).

Miami always enters a season with College World Series aspirations. An influx of transfers has given the lineup new life. Vance Sheahan, a junior infielder from USC-Upstate, has driven in seven runs including a walk-off two-run home run against UCF on Tuesday. Sosa, a junior catcher from North Carolina State, is batting .318 and is already a third of the way from matching his career-high 10 homers from last season. Cian Copeland, who played junior college ball at Miami-Dade, is currently 5-for-9 with seven RBI.

“We have to stay on the one goal we have, and I’m sure everybody knows that one goal we got,” Copeland said. “It’s to go to Omaha.”

A central point of the strength of Miami is in the catcher position. While Sosa is swinging a hot bat, he is typically slotted in the lineup as the designated hitter because Alvarez, a freshman who recently celebrated his 20th birthday, has emerged as a promising catcher in his own right. In Miami’s most recent game against Indiana State, Alvarez doubled and homered in the Hurricanes’ 6-2 win on Wednesday.

“The standard to start here as a freshman, I know the standard is high,” Alvarez said. “[Sosa’s] kind of taken me in as an older brother, and I learned a lot from him. Even off the field, I learned a lot, and it kind of just took a little bit of pressure off my shoulders.”

Sosa and Alvarez have the benefit of being mentored by Director of Program Development Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who spent 12 years as a Major League catcher including with the Miami Marlins and Boston Red Sox.

“It’s great to have Salt in here to kind of help all that,” Alvarez said.

AJ Ciscar is projected to start Friday, looking to follow up on his promising Opening Night start, where he allowed one run on five hits with seven strikeouts in five innings. Tate DeRias entered his sophomore season being promoted from weekday starter and reliever to Sunday starter. He struck out nine batters in 4.2 innings during Miami’s 27-3 win over Lehigh last Sunday.

“[Miami head coach JDArteaga] doesn’t necessarily want us to always pitch for strikeout, but the goal for the offseason was definitely to get more swings and misses,” DeRias said. “That’s what I worked on and obviously [Sunday] it was kind of on display.”

Lafayette will play its first game of the season in Miami after the Leopards’ original opening series against Coppin State was cancelled. The Leopards went 14-35 last season, including 9-16 in the Patriot League. They return outfielder Jack Mislan, who batted .261 with eight home runs and 36 RBI as a freshman.

There will be a double-header Saturday starting at 2 p.m., and a matinee Sunday at 1 p.m.