Clemson is in the middle of its worse losing skid of the season. In fact, it’s the only one the Tigers have had this year.
Heading into this weekend series against Duke, 16th-ranked Clemson (25-12, 11-7 ACC) has dropped four straight games, including this past Tuesday’s heartbreaking loss at No. 4 Georgia. A game that went a school-record 20 innings and lasted 6 hours and 33 minutes.
But the loss to the Bulldogs could turn into a positive for the Tigers. It came just two days after they were swept in Tallahassee, Fla., a three-game series in which they were outscored by 20 runs.
“We had a tough weekend last week. But we had a very competitive game (Tuesday),” Clemson head coach Monte Lee said. “It was good to see our guys compete the way they did for twenty innings.
“Our guys did not lose their focus. They kept getting after it and they kept competing. The dugout energy was awesome and that was good to see.”
Clemson pitching bounced back against Georgia after having a horrible weekend in Tallahassee. The Bulldogs had just three hits at the end of the first nine innings. Jacob Hennessy and Owen Griffith allowed a combined two hits and struck out six batters in six scoreless innings. Carson Spiers, Holt Jones and Luke Sommerfeld then pitched 12 1/3 innings of scoreless baseball, while striking out 16 Bulldogs and giving up just five hits.
“I’m proud of how we competed,” Lee said. “We came up short in a tough game, but overall, there are a lot of positives to take from (Tuesday).”
Despite the loss, it was a nice bounce back for the Tigers, who are playing a lot of freshmen and sophomores this year. But Clemson still has some work to do, and it’s primarily at the plate.
The Tigers were just 1-for-17 with runners in scoring position against Georgia. Leaving runners stranded in scoring position has been an issue all year.
Clemson batters also struck out 26 times against the Bulldogs, seven coming against Bulldogs’ starter Tim Elliott.
“We just need to get back to the basics,” Lee said. “We got two strike-counts and we were just swinging out of the zone. We just talked about staying in the strike zone and look for pitches that you can hit hard and try to lay off pitches out of the zone.
“I just feel like we are trying to do too much, offensively. Seeing guys over and over coming out of their shoes. All we need is base runners. We need to put together, string together quality at-bats. I just think our guys, overall tonight, offensively, just came out of the strike zone too much.”
Clemson will host Duke (21-16, 8-10 ACC) in Game 1 of their three-game series Friday at 6 p.m. from Doug Kingsmore Stadium in Clemson.