Clemson Baseball Wins Series Against Virginia

Clemson baseball continues to surprise. Virginia seems like a team that has always given the Tigers fits. Virginia is certainly a talented team, but Clemson has always made the series an adventure. That was the case again this year, but Clemson managed to come out on top and take a 2-1 series win over the Hoos.

The Tigers did not start the series well with a Friday night 2-0 loss. The game was a pitching dual through the first 6 innings. Then Virginia started off the 7th with a lead off home run and added an insurance run in 9th. It was more than enough for them to secure the win despite an excellent outing from Charlie Barnes. The Clemson pitcher prevented the prolific Virginia offense from advancing past first base until that 7th inning home run. The run also ended his scoreless innings streak at 27.2 innings. Clemson never had many opportunities to score on Friday night, and their one big moment with runners on the corner sin the 8th ended poorly.

Saturday was a much better and certainly much more exciting game for Clemson. Monte Lee made a pitching switch before the series started, he moved Alex Eubanks into the Saturday starting spot and slid Pat Krall back to Sunday. The move paid off even though it got a little interesting after Eubanks left the game.

Clemson started extremely well with a 6 run first inning. The huge lead came from some excellent hitting with 2 outs in the first. 5 of the 6 runs came with 2 outs and Clemson showed an excellent ability to work the count and hit some good pitches.

The 8th inning got dicey for Clemson when Jacob Hennessy started the 8th. He allowed 3 runs on 3 hits and only lasted ¹⁄₃ of an inning before being replaced. Virginia got another run in the top of the 9th to cut the deficit to 1, but Clemson was able to close the game out and secure a 7-6 win.

Sunday was the rubber match for the series, and Clemson came out strong. Once again Clemson took the lead early with a 1 run first inning. The Tigers then extended their lead bit by bit over the game to end the game with a 12-1 victory. Pat Krall did an excellent job this weekend. He went 7 innings and allowed 5 hits along with 1 run. After Krall’s Saturday struggles it was a relief to get such a strong performance from him.

Another nice part of the weekend, the lack of errors. Clemson had 1 error all weekend, a rather unusual thing for the Tigers. We mentioned earlier in the week that reducing errors was possibly the biggest thing Clemson could improve on, and this weekend it led to a 2-1 series win over the 11th ranked team in the country.

Clemson now has a midweek game against College of Charleston before heading to Rhode Island to take on Boston College in the Tigers first road series of the season.