Returning players look to repeat 2015 performances

Louis Agudelo/ Staff Writer

The Panthers will start their season with a sweep at the University of Mississippi Rebels. If they aren’t careful, all three games might go to the home team, but it could be sweep for themselves. In this clash of the Southeastern Conference, and Conference USA, two heavily favored teams in two respected conferences will have a chance to show their hands.

The Rebels come into this weekend’s series boasting a preseason ranking at 24th in the nation, according to Baseball America. They’ll also get to flex the abilities of whom some are calling the top shortstop in the country, Errol Robinson. After batting an average of .297 last season with 11 doubles, and posting a fielding percentage of .953, Robinson was named a preseason All-American by Baseball America and D1Baseball.com. A junior this spring, he will be joining 5 other returning position-playing starters for Ole Miss, giving them a slight advantage over Florida International, as the Panthers will be returning only 5 starters from last season.

As far as pitching goes, the Rebels have a closer who goes by the name Wyatt Short, and he was arguably the best relief pitcher in college baseball. He was given the National College Baseball Writers Association’s “Stopper of the Year” award, after recording 44 strikeouts in 39 innings pitched, and an ERA of only 1.39, Short is just one more obstacle in the way of FIU’s potential first, second, and third wins of the season.

With what seems like a loaded hand on Ole Miss’ side, the Panthers only have a couple options to turn to as answers.

In the batter’s box, they’ll see how much they can squeeze out of Arizona Western College transfers Nick Day and Irving Lopez. Lopez. Lopez  batted .429 his sophomore season, but will likely hit nowhere near that on the Division 1 level. Guess we gotta wait and see about that.

On the mound is where FIU will have to make their living this weekend,and this season with most of their power-hitters and consistent bats from a last season gone. The leading candidate for the role of “Ace” in this teams deck of a rotation, is Andres Nunez. “Going into last season, they let me know I was going to be coming out of the bullpen.” Nunez said

And he did, right out of the bullpen, and into the second spot in the starting rotation. He emerged and took over the Saturday spot in the starting rotation, the assignment originally given to fellow freshman Garrett Cave. After striking out 79 in 82 innings pitched in 2015, the 6’4”, 240 pound right-hander is poised to keep climbing up the depth chart and take over the top spot in the rotation, to showcase his arm on Friday Nights.

As a freshman, giving batters free bases was his admitted weakness, “some off-speeds got away from me” and he hit 21 batters with his pitches. “My focus this year is to reduce my walks a little bit, and uh, you know, try to get a little better than what I did last year”.

He’ll have to be. Anything less could spell certain doom for his first start, which he does expect to come on Friday night.

The 24th spot in the nation might be a bit optimistic for this Rebel squad, batting .265 a year ago, but if it’s based mostly on defensive prowess, they’ve got it locked. This team posted a fielding percentage of a staggering .971 last season. That’s right. Out of 1000 defensive opportunities, the math says they’re going to botch about 29 of them, maybe. Batters and base-runners for Florida International will have to take advantage of every opportunity Ole Miss gives them, considering they won’t see much more than a couple mistakes from them, if any.

Much about this FIU team is still up in the air, from pitching, to hitting, to positioning new players on defense. Don’t expect for this weekend to show you much about a team that doesn’t know that much about themselves yet, but it will most certainly be a test for so many players in new roles.

But If they’re all as welcoming to the challenge as Andres Nunez, this could be a fun season to watch.

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