Baseball’s just a crazy game
What has the baseball team been up to in the two weeks since taking the series against South Carolina?
It took the first game against a good Georgia Tech team in Atlanta, 7-6. Tech then proceeded to show that they were a very good team by putting up 12 runs and winning by 9. Thank you Sir, may I have another? Why yes, yes indeed. Sunday they elevated their performance by putting 22 runs on the board. Yeah, that stings.
What do you do after getting drubbed by a conference rival? Why you give up two mid week games to Winthrop and Furman. That there’s quite a little losing streak.
But when you’re down, it’s always a good time to visit bottom-dwelling Boston College at intimidating Shea Field.
Well the bleeding slowed down, with Clemson taking the Friday night game 6-3 before splitting a Saturday double-header 2-3 and 4-1.
There goes our chances to take the division and maybe the conference championship.
Wrong.
Over the same two weeks, previously leading Florida State self-destructed as well. They dropped 2 to Miami and 1 to Florida before getting swept at home by that Georgia Tech (13-8) team who’s now leading the Boyd’s pseudo-RPI (Clemson is 2nd in the rankings, but has the same rating as Tech with Rice just behind in 3rd.) Meanwhile Miami (12-9) also dropped 2 to Virginia (13-8) at Coral Gables.
All this means that Clemson (12-6) is tied atop the division with Wake Forest (14-7). FSU and NC State are right behind, each at 13-8 in conference.
From here on out, Clemson hosts Wofford tonight and Virginia Tech (3-18) for a series over the weekend. After a week off for finals, the team travels to Duke (6-15) for a Sunday-Monday-Tuesday series. The Tigers end the season with 7 home games against FSU, College of Charleston, and Wake Forest.
Having 3 of the last 4 series at home is definitely a good thing. This team on the road scares me. Sure we swept Miami, but we’ve also been swept twice now (edit: What was I thinking? We’ve only be swept on the road once. Apparently the two losses to GT seemed like 3 because of all the runs scored.). This may be ok for the regular season, but getting beyond that is going to be tough. Let’s hope that Leggett has the team’s head in the right place from here on out.
Ok, time for a hot dog, some spare ribs, and a tall cool Budweiser.
As an aside, taking a look at the three main college baseball ranking services (Baseball America, Collegiate Baseball, and Sports Weekly/USA Today) you will see the ACC is THE power baseball conference this year. In any one of the three polls, at least 6 teams from the conference are in the Top 25 with another one or two in the Top 30 bringing a the total to 8 different ACC teams in the rankings. The usual suspects (Clemson, FSU, Miami, Ga Tech) are on the list, UNC is topping out the rankings at number 1 in one poll and Virginia and Wake are starting to climb late in the season, while NC State has been hanging the mid teens since February. The ACC tourney should be interesting but I will be really interested to see how the conference does once Regional Host bids are handed out and everyone gets to beat up on the rest of the country.