Clemson led 9-3 after six innings Tuesday night at Doug Kingsmore Stadium. Final score: Coastal Carolina 11, Clemson 9. Eight unanswered runs. Three errors. Nine pitchers. Pick your poison.
The Tigers dropped to 18-8 with their seventh loss in ten games, and watched a game that should have been over by the seventh slip away entirely.
Coastal Carolina got to starter Dane Moehler immediately. Rex Watson launched a three-run homer to center on a 2-0 count after a walk and a hit batter put runners aboard in the first. 3-0 before Clemson even batted. Moehler finished the inning but didn’t come back for the second.
Dylan Harrison gave Clemson three scoreless innings out of the bullpen. Four strikeouts, one hit allowed. He kept Coastal quiet long enough for the lineup to come alive, and by the time his night was done, the Tigers had flipped the game.
The fourth inning was the best offensive inning this team has strung together in weeks. Jackson Moore got plunked. Jack Crighton walked. Nate Savoie lined an RBI single to left center that scored Moore and moved Crighton to third. Tryston McCladdie grounded out to short, scored Crighton. Then Jacob Jarrell hammered a two-run shot down the left field line, his 11th homer of the year, and suddenly it was 6-3. Dillard doubled. Lichtenberger singled him home. Five runs in one frame. 7-3 Tigers.
Sixth inning made it feel like a wrap. Ty Dalley crushed a solo homer over the right field wall. Lichtenberger got hit by a pitch and Fultz tripled down the right field line to score him. 9-3 Clemson with three innings left to play. Over 4,900 fans with no reason to worry.
Not for long.
Noah Samol replaced Justin LeGuernic to start the seventh and couldn’t get through it. Coastal’s Mihos singled. Barthol walked. Mitchell flied out for the first out, but Watson singled to center and loaded the bases. That was it for Samol. Four batters, one out, bases jammed. Talan Bell came in to pitch for Clemson and it only got worse. Taylor singled in Mihos. Chamberlain struck out for the second out, and for a second it felt like Bell might escape. He didn’t. Horton drew an RBI walk that scored Barthol. Estep ripped a two-run single to right that scored Watson and Taylor. Horton came around on the ensuing rundown at first. Five runs on four hits and two walks. 9-8.
It vanished in the eighth. Nelson walked Harlan, Mihos singled him to third, and Mitchell laid down a sacrifice bunt that scored Harlan. Tied at nine. Then Watson hit a grounder to second and Dillard couldn’t handle it. Mihos scored on the error. 10-9 Coastal.
Ninth inning. Same thing. Horton reached on another Dillard fielding error to start the frame. Stole third. Scored on a Barthol sacrifice fly. 11-9.
It’s not like this is one bad night. This team has been sloppy with the glove for weeks. The Notre Dame series had defensive breakdowns that extended innings and gifted runs. Saturday’s walk-off loss in South Bend carried the same fingerprints. Free base runners turning into free runs, and a bullpen forced to navigate traffic it never should have faced.
Crighton went 3-for-4 with three runs scored and did everything he could at the top of the order. But the bats disappeared after the sixth. Clemson went down in order in both the eighth and ninth when one base runner could have changed everything. The Tigers went 4-for-18 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11. Sound familiar? They went 1-for-14 in that category Sunday at Notre Dame. Getting on base hasn’t been the issue. Converting has.
Nine pitchers in nine innings. Think about that. Harrison was the only arm that gave Clemson any length, and he’s not even a starter. Samol recorded one out. Bell got two. Dvorsky faced three batters and didn’t finish the ninth. When you’re burning through that many arms on a Tuesday, you’re putting stress on the entire staff heading into the weekend.
Clemson was 15-1 not long ago. Fifteen and one. Now 18-8, and Tuesday’s six-run lead should have been the game that stopped the bleeding. Instead it’s the latest loss in a stretch where the defense keeps putting the team in holes it can’t climb out of.
