Jimmy Nugent had already done it twice. He did it one more time when it counted.
The Louisville catcher’s walk-off two-run homer down the left-field line in the bottom of the 10th ended a grinding Sunday afternoon at Jim Patterson Stadium, sending the Cardinals to a 7-5 win and a series sweep over Clemson. The Tigers drop to 26-19 overall and 6-15 in ACC play, dropping their fourth consecutive conference game after arriving in Louisville having already dropped the last two games of a series at Virginia.
Clemson rallied to tie it in the ninth. That was the good part.
The rest of it was 17 men left on base, a 2-for-13 mark with runners in scoring position, and an offense that kept generating traffic it couldn’t convert. Friday’s 13-10 loss in this same stadium had its own flavor of waste, five errors turning a winnable game into a blowout. Sunday’s version was quieter. The defense played clean all day. The problem was entirely at the plate with runners on base, and it showed up in the very first inning and never left.
The ninth inning gave Tiger fans something to work with. Trailing 5-3, Jason Fultz Jr. singled to lead off and Tyler Lichtenberger walked. Bryce Clavon moved them over with a sacrifice bunt. Jay Dillard struck out pinch hitting, but Nate Savoie drew an intentional pass, and Jarren Purify came in to run. Then Tryston McCladdie lined a single up the middle, Briggs Sullivan and Lichtenberger crossing the plate to make it 5-5. Wild pitches advanced McCladdie and Purify into scoring position. But Luke Gaffney flew out to center on a 3-2 count to end the inning, the go-ahead run 90 feet away for the second time in the game. Clemson had tied it. It had also just left two more on.
Nugent made sure none of it mattered.
He opened the scoring in the second with a solo shot to left center off Dane Moehler. Quick, clean, Louisville in front before Clemson could settle in. In the fourth, he doubled down the left-field line to set up Ben Slanker, who pulled a first-pitch fastball over the right-field wall for a two-run home run and a 4-2 Cardinals lead. Tague Davis added a solo shot to right center off Dion Brown in the eighth to push it to 5-3 and leave Clemson needing a two-run swing in the final two innings. Then in the 10th, with Bayram Hot on first after singling up the middle, Nugent sent one over the wall in left to end it. Three-for-five. Two home runs. Three RBI. On a day the Tigers kept answering, Nugent kept posing a new question.
The Clemson lineup wasn’t without contribution. Gaffney reached base four times, scored twice, and was on base in most of the innings that mattered. His production disappeared into the LOB column. Fultz Jr. went 2-for-4 with an RBI single in the third, a two-out line drive to right that plated Gaffney and knotted it at 1-1. Clavon drew an RBI walk in the fifth to pull Clemson within one at 4-3. Savoie chipped in a sacrifice fly in the fourth that briefly tied things at 2-2. The pieces were there. The problem was always the piece that came next.
The third inning offered a preview of how the day would go. Clemson got back to 1-1 on Fultz Jr.’s single, then Louisville loaded the bases through a walk, a bunt single, and a Jacob Jarrell throwing error that let a runner reach second and advanced another to third. Zion Rose came up hit by a pitch, forcing in a run, and suddenly a manageable half-inning had turned into a 2-1 Cardinals lead despite only one hit. That error didn’t cost Clemson the game. But it set the pattern. Opportunities created, opportunities squandered, Louisville making Clemson pay for the ones that got away.
Drew Titsworth was the best arm out of the bullpen on the day. He worked two scoreless innings in the sixth and seventh with seven strikeouts, keeping the deficit at two while the offense tried to find another gear. Brendon Bennett threw a clean inning. Dylan Harrison ran into the Slanker homer in the fourth and didn’t survive the inning. And Justin LeGuernic, who entered with the game tied after the ninth, got one out in the 10th before Nugent put it away.
Seventeen left on base. Clemson had the potential go-ahead run at third base with less than two outs in the fifth inning. Had runners at second and third in the sixth. Went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position before the third inning was finished. This isn’t an offense that can’t get on base. It’s one that keeps running out of hitters when it matters most.
At 6-15 in ACC play, Clemson has four series remaining in the regular season to salvage conference standing. The math to reach the ACC Tournament is getting harder. The Tigers haven’t won an ACC series since taking two of three from North Carolina in early April, and the gap between where they are and where they need to be is no longer something one good weekend can close.
Clemson opens a home series against Boston College on Friday night at Doug Kingsmore Stadium, with first pitch set for 6 p.m.
