SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Thirteen hits. Four runs. Twelve runners left on base. One for fourteen with runners in scoring position.
Read those numbers again. That is a team beating itself.
Clemson Baseball fell 7-4 to Notre Dame on Sunday, dropping all three games to the Irish and falling to 18-7 overall and 1-5 in ACC play. Clemson outhit Notre Dame 13-8 and still lost by three because every time a big at-bat came up with runners on base, nobody could deliver.
Notre Dame starter Ty Uber allowed just one earned run in five innings, struck out six, and walked one. His line looks clean because Clemson kept putting runners on and then doing nothing with them.
The sixth inning was the backbreaker. Jacob Jarrell singled up the middle. Luke Gaffney singled to center, putting runners at first and second. Ty Dalley struck out on five pitches. Then Jay Dillard reached on a fielding error by Jamie Zee at third base, and suddenly Clemson had the bases loaded with one out, trailing 5-1. This was the moment. The game was right there.
Jason Fultz Jr. grounded into a 5-3 double play. Inning over. Bases loaded, one out, and Clemson got nothing.
That wasn’t the only missed chance. In the fifth, Jack Crighton singled through the right side, advanced to second on a wild pitch, then moved to third on a throwing error by Uber on a pickoff attempt. Runner on third, nobody out. Nate Savoie struck out swinging. Tryston McCladdie struck out swinging. Crighton stood at third base and watched two straight strikeouts end the inning.
The eighth was more of the same. Dillard singled to center. Fultz singled up the middle, putting runners on first and second with nobody out. Tyler Lichtenberger struck out swinging. Mound visit. Crighton flied out to right. Two runners stranded, no damage.
Clemson didn’t score until the third inning when Crighton and Savoie hit back-to-back singles, both advanced on a wild pitch, and McCladdie lifted a sacrifice fly to center. That was it for the next three innings. One run on a sac fly.
The ninth inning told the whole story in miniature. Savoie singled, advanced on a wild pitch, and McCladdie got hit by a pitch. Jarrell singled to short to load the bases with nobody out. Bases loaded, no outs, trailing by three. This was the last chance to make Notre Dame sweat. Gaffney’s groundout to first brought home Savoie. Dalley’s sac fly scored McCladdie. But that was it. Dillard struck out swinging to end the game with a runner still standing on base. Bases loaded, nobody out, and Clemson could only push two across. That’s the whole weekend in one half-inning.
At some point, this stops being bad luck and starts being a problem. On Friday, the Tigers went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position. Combined with Sunday, that’s 1-for-20 across two of three games this weekend. The ability to get on base is there. The ability to move runners over is there. What’s missing is the clutch hit, the two-out single that breaks a game open, the swing that makes a pitcher pay for a mistake with ducks on the pond. Until that changes, Clemson will keep wasting quality at-bats and quality starts from its pitching staff.
The cruel part is that Drew Titsworth turned in one of the better starts of his career and still took the loss. Four innings, five hits, two earned runs, zero walks, five strikeouts on 77 pitches. He threw 70 percent strikes and kept Notre Dame off balance for most of his outing. One of the three runs charged to him was unearned, coming after a Clemson error extended the third inning. On most days, that start keeps your team in the game. Sunday, it didn’t matter because the offense gave him nothing to work with. Titsworth exited after four trailing 3-1, and the bullpen couldn’t hold it. Talan Bell gave up two runs in a third of an inning in the fifth. Joe Allen surrendered two more in an inning of work. Brendon Bennett and Ariston Veasey held Notre Dame scoreless over the final 2.2 innings, but by then the deficit was 7-2.
Notre Dame didn’t need many hits to score. Drew Berkland doubled in the first and scored on a groundout. Noah Coy singled twice to drive in runs in the third and sixth. The Irish were efficient when they needed to be. Clemson was not.
Savoie finished 4-for-5. Crighton went 2-for-5 with a run scored. Jarrell was 2-for-4. Gaffney went 2-for-5. Seven different Tigers had at least one hit. Nine of Clemson’s 13 hits were singles, and none of them came when they mattered most.
Clemson came to South Bend and got shut out on Friday, lost a walk-off heartbreaker on Saturday, and wasted 13 hits in Sunday’s finale. Three different ways to lose. The non-conference record looks fine at 17-2. But at 1-5 in ACC play, the pattern is clear: Clemson can get on base against conference pitching. It just can’t cash runners in when it counts.
