Opening the season up against highly thought of, and ranked opponents seems to have gotten the Clemson Baseball team ready to go against better competition early in the season.
The Tigers swept the in-state rival, South Carolina Gamecocks for the Palmetto Series across three days and three towns within the state. Winning Friday night 5-3 at home; 5-1 in Greenville; and 8-2 in the finale at Founders Park in Columbia.
Here are some things that we learned in this rivalry weekend’s series recap:
The Great
The Starters – (I nearly went with the bullpen here, and if I had to rank my “Great” things that we learned this weekend, it would be 1 and 1a.) How great were the starters this weekend. The tone was set with Aidan Knaak’s strikeout of former Tiger Nolan Nawrocki and then stare down walking off the field. Knaak (1-0; 5.93 ERA) has been serviceable as the Friday night guy this season, but there is zero question or debate that Ethan Darden has been the early season ace (2-0; 1.06 ERA). And after the first outing against Ole Miss, I’m not sure Tiger fans bought into Justin LeGuernic as the Sunday guy, but the last two outings have been outstanding. Another 2 hit, 6 strikeout performance for the Sophomore lefty.
The Bullpen – After Knaak went 4 2/3s on Friday, Jacob McGovern shut down the Gamecock bid to come back, and then Lucas Mahlstedt slammed the door. Saturday, after Darden’s gem, Drew Titsworth went 2 innings of scoreless relief for the series clinching win. Then on Sunday, after LeGuernic was nearing 75 pitches, Joe Allen came in for three innings and matched LeGuernic’s six strikeouts. Mahlstedt got into a little bit of trouble in the 8th, but Reed Garris came in to secure the win in the ninth. The bullpen was extremely solid, and yet we still haven’t seen Seton Hall transfer Michael Gillen as of yet.
9th Inning Magic – The Tigers scored 7 runs over the last two games of the series to put both games out of reach. The lineup ran into some solid starting pitching this weekend but had great approaches at the plate all the way through the games. The fight of this lineup is impressive. They just keep coming even after getting handled at times over the three game sweep.
The Good
Timely Hitting – talked about the ninth inning breakouts in the final two games of the series in the above category. It felt like every time that South Carolina put something together or scratched across a run or two, Clemson responded. Seems to be a theme in the early parts of the season.
The OK
Contagious Strikeouts – South Carolina’s three starters were very good, and they deserve all of the kudos that come along with it. Now, their team ended up getting swept, however, the fans of our friends in the midlands should feel like they have their three guys to go into SEC play. The second best conference in the country, behind the ACC. The pitchers, especially Saturday’s starter Jake McCoy was dominating Clemson’s hitters, striking out 12 of the 19 batters that he faced…yet still lost the game.
Overall Hitting – I sound like a broken record, but this lineup will hit, and as much as the strikeouts are contagious, we’ve seen this team string hits together in other games/series. However, there were stretches this weekend where the bats went completely silent. Now it says something that the Tigers were still able to get hot when it mattered and won three games, but I don’t believe that is a sustainable model for success over the course of 56 games, plus the post-season.
Overall Grade
Solid B – Going into the season, I truly thought that the bats would lead this team and the arms would come around. I was not quite a believer in the bullpen either. I have been proven wrong and my thought process completely reversed.
It’s nice to not play your “A” game and still sweep the in-state rival.
The Tiger bullpen delivered a stellar performance all weekend, consistently shutting down opponents with lights-out pitching. However, the eighth inning of Sunday’s game proved to be an exception, presenting a rare hiccup in an otherwise dominant showing. The pitching staff, is as advertised, and that’s with Sophomore sensation Aiden Knaak not quite up to last years standard as of yet. He’s been fine, just not completely dominant quite yet. I have full faith that he’ll find that form over the course of the season and make this weekend rotation something to fear.
The bullpen outings from many guys has made us stop thinking about all of the injuries that have affected the staff. We have still yet to see transfer Michael Gillen, who was electric for Seton Hall in the Big East Conference throughout his career thus far. Plus, the season ending losses from a couple of the young guys, yet the bullpen is a huge strength of this team, which bodes well for a long run into June.
Next up are two mid-week games this week, first Tuesday night again at Fluor Field in Greenville against USC Upstate, where the Tigers will be the designated away team. Then back at DKS on Wednesday to host Presbyterian College before this weekend’s series against Davidson. 5 games this weekend and a preview for all five upcoming this week.
