Gino DiMare excited by home run production from Miami’s offense

Miami baseball coach Gino DiMare knew going into this season that his hitters had power. Still, the Hurricanes have wildly surpassed his expectations with their home run production.

Miami leads the ACC with 106 home runs, two more than Wake Forest, which earned the No. 1 seed in the ACC Tournament. That number is the second-most in program history and makes the Hurricanes a dangerous team heading into postseason play.

“We have hit a lot of home runs this year,” DiMare said. “I would never have guessed that, although we do have a lot of guys with power. We would’ve hit a lot more if (Lorenzo Carrier) was in the lineup all year long. That’s great coaching on my part not having him in the lineup for most of the season. He’s got as much power as anybody on our team and he hasn’t had a lot of at-bats.

“But the ballpark is suited for us. We’ve hit probably over 50% of our runs scored this year have been by the home run. Most of our games are played here, although we have hit quite a few home runs on the road, too.”

The crazier part of Miami’s home run success is that the Hurricanes have just one player who ranks among the top 10 in the ACC. Blake Cyr, who is first on the team with 16 homers, comes in at No. 9.

Yolandy Morales and Carlos Perez are tied for the second-most of any Hurricanes player with 13 each, good to tie for 13th in the conference. Overall, Miami has six players who have hit double digit home runs this season and 16 players in total with at least one.

“I think it gives the entire team more confidence,” DiMare said. “There’s no doubt about it. …The game’s never over. We played FIU and the score was 6-3 after five innings and we scored 11 runs after that from the sixth inning on. That’s what can happen when you have power. You can get runs in bursts. You can get a lot of ’em quickly. They actually hit three home runs (against FIU), but they were all solo shots.

“It seems like a lot of our home runs have come with guys on base. Dom Pitelli, I think he’s hit four career grand slams now. We’ve had some big home runs in big situations with guys on base. So that’s important. I think our pitchers and our entire team knows we have confidence to be able to do that at any time.”

Miami’s bats once again stayed hot to close the regular season Saturday. The Hurricanes defeated Duke by a score of 10-1 to win the series as they hit three home runs, including a grand slam from Zach Levenson.

DiMare and Miami will hope to keep that up heading into the ACC Tournament next week. The Hurricanes earned the No. 4 seed and will begin play Tuesday in Pool D along with the No. 5 seed Blue Devils and No. 9 seed NC State.