CLEMSON, S.C. — Boston College scored in three of the first five innings, never let Clemson get within reach, and walked out of Doug Kingsmore Stadium with an 8-4 win Friday night to open the ACC series.
Six hits. Zero runs with runners in scoring position.
That’s a different kind of loss than giving up eight runs. The Tigers left six men on base and couldn’t cash a single runner when it mattered, and against a Boston College team that came in 17-8 in the ACC, that math doesn’t work out.
Dane Moehler was pulled with two outs in the second inning after 1.2 innings and three earned runs. The freshman right-hander is working back from Tommy John surgery and operating on a pitch count, so his night was never going to go deep into the game. But Boston College didn’t wait around. Nick Wang got him in the first with a solo shot to left, and in the second Danny Surowiec doubled and Ben Williams doubled home Surowiec before Moehler hit his limit at 28 pitches. Justin LeGuernic came in and couldn’t stop it. Julio Solier singled in Williams, Wang came back up and doubled in Solier, and Boston College had four runs before Clemson had batted three times.
Clemson got two back in the bottom of the second without a hit.
Bryce Clavon reached on a throwing error by Boston College’s third baseman, and with runners on base, Tyler Lichtenberger and Jason Fultz scored on the miscue. Neither was earned. The Tigers didn’t manufacture any of it.
Kyle Wolff put that to rest in the third. His two-run shot to left field, scoring Luke Gallo, made it 6-2, and Boston College kept adding distance every time Clemson tried to close it.
Jacob Jarrell was the only Tiger who actually made the Eagles pay. With Luke Gaffney on first in the fifth, Jarrell turned on an A.J. Colarusso fastball and drove it over the left-field wall for his 17th home run of the season. The crowd at Doug Kingsmore got loud for the first time all night. It was 6-4 with four innings to play.
They didn’t do anything with it.
The Tigers went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position. Nate Savoie, 0-for-5. Jarren Purify, 0-for-4. Jack Crighton, 0-for-4. Not a single clutch hit across nine innings. The same thing cost Clemson in the Virginia series two weeks ago. Pitching kept the game close, the lineup went quiet when it mattered, and the loss piled up the same way.
“We had our chances and felt the momentum shift, but we just didn’t execute offensively when it mattered, and that was the difference.”
Erik Bakich, Head coach
LeGuernic threw well after inheriting the second-inning wreckage. He worked 5.1 innings in relief, struck out six, and limited the damage to three earned runs across 23 batters. But you can’t ask your arms to carry this team every night if the offense can’t deliver with men on base.
A.J. Colarusso went six innings and punched out eight on 85 pitches. Cesar Gonzalez closed it over the final three without allowing a hit.
The field was actually clean. One error in nine innings, three double plays turned. That part worked. The part that didn’t: six hits against a staff that walked three batters and hit one, and Clemson couldn’t do a thing with any of it.
Boston College added two more in the ninth off an overworked bullpen. A walk, a wild pitch, an RBI single, an error. That was the game.
0-for-5 with runners in scoring position. That’s not a defense problem.
This is the final home series of Clemson’s regular season, and after Friday night the Tigers are down 1-0 with two games left to save it. Win both and Clemson takes the series. Anything short and they drop another home series to a team playing better baseball. At 6-16 in the ACC, there’s no room for more nights like this. Something has to be different at the plate Saturday.
Clemson and Boston College play Game 2 of the series Saturday at 1 p.m. at Doug Kingsmore Stadium.
