Clemson seems to make a habit of losing on Opening Day. Friday’s 6-4 defeat at the hands of Wright State is the Tigers’ fourth consecutive loss in an opener, a remarkable stat for a team who plays in a place where Opening Day is a borderline holiday.
This was a different kind of Opening Day loss for the Tigers, though. This wasn’t an overachieving mid- or low-major team catching lightning in a bottle. It wasn’t a light-hitting Tiger offense failing to put runners on base. It wasn’t a bullpen blowup, an ill-timed error, or a mental miscue at a critical moment.
No, Clemson just lost to a good team that played well. Wright State won 46 games last year and nearly prevailed in the Louisville Regional at season’s end. The Raiders lost their head coach but hired from within, carrying essentially the same DNA into 2017 that made them a threat in 2016. They run, they hit, they battle, they pitch reasonably well, and the right players made plays at critical moments.
Clemson did many of those things, as well. The Tigers pounded out 11 hits and drew nine walks. There was only one 1-2-3 inning in the entire game. They got runners on base. Even a big mistake—a passed ball by a freshman catcher that allowed a run to score—was offset when the Raiders allowed the exact same thing to occur.
The Tigers committed correctible mistakes that led to Friday’s defeat. They threatened constantly and scored in four separate innings, but they never put a crooked number on the board. Two out of those four frames ended with the bases loaded. A third inning ended the same way, except with no runs crossing the plate.
The only time Wright State got Seth Beer out was when he struck out with the bases loaded in the sixth inning. Two base-stealers were caught at second, and a third was picked off at first to end an inning.
Warning track shots hit by Tigers were caught. One ball left the yard for the Raiders, while another just evaded Reed Rohlman’s lunging effort for a triple early in the contest. That didn’t result in any scoring, but it did run up Charlie Barnes’ pitch count. He left with 13 outs still to record in the contest, the victim of a pitch count that sat at 90 when Monte Lee came to take the baseball from him.
Plenty could’ve gone better for Clemson on Friday. The Tigers will lose a lot of games when they leave all of those opportunities on the table, but they’ll also win a bunch of them. On this occasion, they just so happened to be facing off against a quality team with a non-threatening name on the jersey.
Lee will use this as a teaching tool. He will correct and coach and guide and scold and mold and motivate. He will do what he does, but he won’t be disappointed, because this was not a deflating loss. It was not an unwelcome result like many of the others witnessed at Doug Kingsmore Stadium on Opening Days in the recent past.
Clemson played well this time. If they play well on Saturday, they’ll likely win. Same goes for Sunday. Unlike many times before, this 0-1 start is more about what Clemson’s opponent did than what the Tigers didn’t do.