The sky is not falling Clemson Baseball fans. But this is…different. For the first time since the opening weekend, Clemson did not sweep their weekend series. For that matter, Clemson lost a game (but still won the series) for the first time since the opening weekend. And it’s all going to be ok. I promise.
Clemson took 2 of 3 games from the Fighting Irish over the weekend; winning by scores of 2-1 and 11-7 before dropping the finale 7-3.
There were some really good things that happened over the weekend, and then some glaring things that weren’t so good.
Here are some things that we learned in this weekend’s series recap with Notre Dame:
The Great
Aidan Knaak – The ace of the staff has taken some heat from fans because he has not been as dominant as he was in the Sunday starter role last season. Don’t misconstrue that, he’s not lost a start this season, but he was flat out dominant for the majority of the ‘24 season. Well Clemson fans, Knaak was dominant Friday afternoon striking out a career high 12 Notre Dame hitters through 7 innings and only allowed 1 hit. He was brilliant.
Saturday’s Bats – 8 of the 9 regulars reached base more than once on Saturday. After getting stymied a bit on Friday, the bats awoke on Saturday for 11 runs. Collin Priest and Tryston McCladdie added home runs for the Tigers.
Cam Cannarella’s Bat – The leader of the team has been in a bit of a “slump” to start the season. By any other comparison one could say that is being extremely nit picky. But for Cam, and how consistent he has been for his first two seasons, hitting below .300 is cause for pause. He’s starting to heat up. 5 hits in his last 8 at bats and now hitting .304 on the season after being in the .200s for the majority of the early parts of the season.
The Good
Friday Defense – Knaak faced 23 hitters and struck out 12 of them, however the defense shined in the opener. No errors and a few sparkling plays all over the field helped when the bats were being shut down by Notre Dame pitching…
The ‘Meh’
Sunday’s Defense – …As good as Friday’s defense was, Sunday’s was not great. 4 errors which led to 2 unearned runs and put Clemson pitchers in tough situations all day. Giving up the long ball early didn’t help either though.
Free 90s – 14 walks/hit by pitches on Saturday and Sunday for this staff. If you follow this column from a week to week basis, nearly every week the bullpen has been in the upper two-thirds of this list. And I am still not sure they completely deserve to be in this group, but the 8 walks on Saturday and then 6 on Sunday did not help. Coach Bakich will not like this statistic at all and will need to get better as the competition gets better and better.
Saturday and Sunday Starters – Ethan Darden has been the “ace” in the early going. He was due to have a mediocre start and he did on Saturday. Again, probably a bit nit-picky, however he did walk more hitters than he had up to this point in the season. There is no doubt he’ll revert back to his dominating self in the coming weeks. Justin LeGuernic, on the other hand had his second straight “meh” start and social media is starting to ask whether there needs to be a change. Luckily social media doesn’t make these decisions, but after two great starts, to have two clunkers and maybe some of the questions are justified. I am still on the LeGuernic train though, for the record.
Overall Grade
C – C is for Clemson, and also what I would put their grade this weekend. I thought the Friday bats were shut down really well by Notre Dame Sophomore Jack Radel and their bullpen. The Tigers were able to pull out the victory because of Knaak and the bullpen along with stellar defense all night.
The sky’s not falling. This is the second loss of the young season and there will likely be more. The goal is always to win every series, and if that continues, this Clemson team will be a 40+-win season. That will be good enough to host a regional, yet again.
I continue to say how good this Clemson team is. There was definitely some adversity this weekend, and they were still able to grind out two wins.
The Tigers are 19-2 on the season, and will still be a top 10 team come this week’s rankings.
Next up are two mid-week games this week against The Citadel and former Clemson player/captain Russell Triplett on Tuesday and Wednesday at home. Then the Tigers will welcome Wake Forest to Doug Kingsmore Stadium over the weekend.
