Whatever you think the ceiling should be for the Clemson baseball team, embrace it.
If you think the Tigers should win the ACC, go ahead and buy in. If you think it’s hosting a regional, reserve that weekend on your calendar. If you think it’s Omaha, go ahead and book a refundable flight, just in case.
It seems outrageous and illogical to make these kinds of grandiose proclamations before the halfway point in the schedule…but we’re only four games from halfway. And I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but Clemson is pretty dang good.
It goes beyond just winning games and winning series. The Tigers are sweeping teams, both in and out of the ACC. It also goes beyond a certain element of the game or style of play, as Clemson has been beating teams using every conceivable method.
After a weekend sweep of Boston College, Monte Lee’s team sits at 20-4 overall and 8-1 in ACC play. The Tigers have ascended as high as fifth in the country in this week’s polls and have won six consecutive games, including the last four away from home.
Clemson baseball hasn’t seen a start this good since the 1995 season. That team featured arguably the best rotation in school history (Benson, Vining, Koch) and ended up in the College World Series. For years, it has seemed like the years of sweeping opponents and predictably imposing its collective will on the opposition were a relic of Clemson’s past. Clearly, that’s not the case.
The Tigers have done this against a top-30 schedule. They have won 15 consecutive games away from home. Five of their 20 wins—or one-fourth of the total, for fans of fractions—have come in shutout form. They have dominated the first time through the batting order, and they have dominated the final three innings.
It really doesn’t matter what the specific matchup requires. Clemson finds a way. All good teams do, but this team has already surpassed the “good” stage and is skyrocketing toward elite status, because Clemson finds a way literally every time out.
Consider this: Of Clemson’s four losses, the last two have come via shutouts on Friday nights. The Tigers have won 19 consecutive games in which they have scored. That’s because the pitching staff has been outrageously dominant. The team’s current strikeout-to-walk ratio of 4.51 leads the country and would eviscerate the prior school record. Nationally, the Tigers rank eighth in WHIP (1.10) and 11th in ERA (2.68).
When simply scoring a run directly correlates to winning, you’re a freaking good team. Like, scary good. Clemson hasn’t pitched great every game. It hasn’t hit or scored runs well every game. But when it needs to do any of those things to win, the vast majority of the time, it does them.
Clemson has already swept Notre Dame and Boston College in conference play. Over the previous six seasons, it only swept more than two ACC foes once. In 2014 and 2015, the Tigers picked up a pair of sweeps—but half of those were in weather-effected two-game series. Monte Lee is unbeaten against Notre Dame and Boston College in his career at Clemson, winning all six contests against both teams over his two seasons at the helm.
It’s fair to point out that Lee has swept those two programs but no others in his time at Clemson. It’s also true that Clemson has already done in 30 percent of its conference schedule what it has taken an entire 30-game league slate to accomplish in recent memory. The Tigers have managed two sweeps with seven weekend series remaining.
That should scare the pants off of Clemson’s remaining opponents. Around the nation, pundits are beginning to attach adjectives like “scary” and “dangerous” to the Tigers. That caliber of praise is reserved for the nation’s elite—the realm in which Clemson currently finds itself.
So hang onto those lofty predictions. Come out to the ballpark enthused and ready to be entertained. Tune in to games with expectation. This team has earned it.
There are 32 games remaining in the regular season—57 percent of the season. Still, it doesn’t seem too soon to reach for the stars at Doug Kingsmore Stadium.