Clemson Falls Short Against Winthrop

Following an impressive shutout win against their rival South Carolina Gamecocks in Columbia on Monday, the Tiger baseball team travelled back home to Doug Kingsmore Stadium to face the Winthrop Eagles. However, the momentum from the South Carolina game did not carry into the matchup with Winthrop, as Clemson fell 5-4 after a late-inning rally was not enough to seal the victory. With the defeat, Clemson drops to 7-4 on the season, and Winthrop improves to 7-3. Clemson starter Charlie Barnes (1-1) suffered the loss in his first career start, allowing two runs on six hits in 3.0 innings pitched.

The Tigers scored first in the game courtesy of a long ball to left center from Chris Okey in the second inning, his second homer of the year. However, Winthrop went on to take the lead in the third inning, scoring two on RBIs from Tyler Asbill and Mark Lowrie; the Tigers never managed to get the lead back as the Eagles ensured their victory with a fifth inning, three-run homer from Roger Gonzalez off of Alex Schnell. Schnell pitched uncharacteristically poorly on Tuesday, allowing three earned runs on two hits in 1.2 innings.

Clemson did manage to get a run in the fifth inning on a RBI single down the third base line from Eli White, and the Tigers went on to score two more in the eighth inning on RBIs from Steven Duggar and Chase Pinder. Pinder appeared to have injured his hand sliding into first base on his hit, but ended up finishing out the game.

"We were ready to go at the beginning, but we just didn't get our bats going until later in the game," White said. "Coming off that big weekend, we felt ready to go and we were excited about this game, but we just couldn't get things going until later."

The Tigers did have a man on third with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and Tyler Krieger up at bat, but Krieger struck out looking to end the game. The junior designated hitter went 1-for-5 on the night, and while he did not get the RBI at the end of the game, he did extend his hitting streak to 13 games, dating back to the end of the 2014 season.

Clemson will now travel to Raleigh, N.C. to open ACC play with a weekend series against the NC State Wolfpack. The series starts on Friday at 6:30 p.m., continues on Saturday at the same time and wraps up on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. All three games can be viewed on ESPN3.