DURHAM, N.C. — On Thursday night, Clemson pitcher Clate Schmidt did like most young men do when they come to Durham, N.C., and play in the ACC Championships.
He took in a few innings of one of the baseball games, and then got a bite to eat at the Tobacco Road Restaurant, which sits right above the monster wall in left field at Durham Bulls Athletic Park. After filling himself up with a good meal, instead of watching the end of Miami’s dramatic win over NC State, he went back to his hotel room and went to bed.
Yep, by 8:30 p.m., the righty called it a night.
“I needed to go back and get some sleep because I knew we were getting up early to practice and then heading over to the ballpark,” Schmidt said. “I knew I needed to get a good night’s rest.”
It was good for the 12th-ranked Tigers Schmidt got the rest he needed. The righty needed it as he came within one out of a complete-game performance in a 5-3 victory over No. 5 Louisville on Friday.
After falling behind 3-1 through the first four innings, the senior shut the Cardinals out the rest of the afternoon. He gave up just one hit over the next 4 2/3 innings, shutting down a lineup that came in hitting .307 and with just two players hitting below .326.
However, it was quite the contrast from the last time he faced Louisville. On April 15, the Cardinals knocked him around for five earned runs on 10 hits in 2 1/3 innings or work in a 15-2 loss. Schmidt’s earned run average for that afternoon was 19.29.
“We had talked about it right when we found out it we were going to play them, especially when it popped up in game two. I said, ‘That’s mine,” Schmidt said. “They got a hold of me, and I did not have my best stuff. I knew coming in that was the extra motivation that I needed.
“Where I am now as pitcher, compared to then, its two different places and I’m very fortunate for that to be the case.”
Louisville (47-11) did not even recognize Schmidt.
“I definitely thought his fastball was a little more explosive today than the last time,” Cardinals’ first baseman Danny Rosenbaum said. “He was really pounding the zone with his fastball and slider, and that’s just going to make anybody effective. He has some pretty good velocity and a good off-speed pitch.
“If you’re throwing them for strikes, it’s going to be tough. You’re going to have to put a lot of good at-bats together to get some runs.”
Schmidt nearly went the distance as he pitched a career-high 8 2/3 innings, besting the previous week’s 8 1/3 at Notre Dame. He allowed just three runs—none after the fourth inning—and eight hits. The Cardinals had just three hits after the fourth inning and two of those came with two outs in the ninth inning.
The righty finished the afternoon with six strikeouts, three in the last three innings.
“I made a couple mechanical changes with Coach (Andrew) See after we faced Louisville, and I started to get back a little bit of my velocity and it had more life to it, late, like I used to have,” Schmidt said. “I think that that was another thing that’s benefitted me as a pitcher and being able to go deep into games.”
Schmidt has now won his last three starts, and has pitched at least into the seventh inning in three of his last four. The one time he didn’t was because he was on a pitch count in the Tigers’ win over Charleston Southern on May 17.
“I knew going into it, especially with the previous starts and outings, I was coming in there with a different confidence level,” Schmidt said. “Our defense and offense has really been clicking as of late, as they always have been. I was really fortunate to be able to go in there with a lot of confidence and just try to execute pitches and get us out and back into the dugout as quickly as possible.”
And getting a good night’s rest helped a lot.
TCI’s Clemson preseason magazine is now available. Order your copy of Unfinished Business – An Insider Look at Clemson’s 2016 season today.
