By Will Vandervort.
By Will Vandervort
Sundays have not been too kind to the Clemson baseball team the last three weeks.
Two weeks ago, South Carolina shut out the Tigers 6-0 in Columbia and last week NC State scored a 4-1 victory in Raleigh, NC. Though Clemson starter Scott Firth pitched well enough in both outings to earn wins, bad fielding, careless base running and bad hitting prevented Clemson from victory.
On Sunday at Doug Kingsmore Stadium there was much of the same as Clemson failed to get anything going offensively until the sixth inning, while two errors did not help Firth’s chances. But for the first time this year, Firth was off his game and 12th-ranked Virginia made him pay in an 8-5 victory to take two of three games in the weekend series.
“He did not have much going for him today,” Clemson head coach Jack Leggett said.
Firth did not have anything going early on, and he had his shortest outing of the season to show for it. He lasted just five innings, allowing six runs—all earned—on nine hits.
The righty threw a season-high 111 pitches, but only 74 were strikes. After having an earned run average of 0.98 prior to Sunday, Firth’s ERA ballooned to 2.48 before his afternoon was over.
“Early in the game, I think I was going just a little too fast,” the senior said. “I kind of got out of my game a little bit of staying in control and pounding the zone. I caught a couple of tough breaks, but you have to hand it to their team, they took advantage of some of our mistakes early, my pitching mistakes and our mistakes in the field.”
Firth’s mistakes came from his command, or lack thereof early on. First he gave up back-to-back one out hits from Jared King and Joe McCarthy in the top of the first and then loaded the bases when he hit Brandon Downes.
Just when it looked like he was going to find his way out by striking out Derek Fisher for the second out of the inning, he resorted back to his early ways by walking in the game’s first two runs.
“I have to take responsibility for that,” Firth said. “It is my job as a senior and as the Sunday guy to start things off on the right foot and I did not do that today. I kind of put us in a whole unfortunately. At least, I think we did a good job staying in the game.”
Virginia (17-2, 4-2 ACC) extended its lead to 5-0 with a three-run second inning, forcing Firth to throw 67 pitches in the first two innings of the game. Only 40 of those pitches were strikes.
“The past two Sundays before this one, I think we pitched pretty well,” Firth said. “At South Carolina, that one inning got out of hand. At NC State, the game was right there the whole way. But honestly, it is my responsibility to go out there and start things off on the right foot and let teams know that we are here to play on Sundays and we are going to take the series, but we will have to get back to that next week.”
Clemson (11-7, 3-3 ACC) tried to rally and take it this Sunday when Shane Kennedy started a two-out rally with a base hit up the middle in the sixth inning. Jon McGibbon then doubled down the right field line to score Kennedy and Tyler Krieger picked McGibbon up on the next at-bat with a base hit to right to make the score 6-2.
The Tigers got another run in the seventh inning when Wilkerson had a two-out double down the left field line, bringing Tyler Slaton home for the third run. Slaton led off the inning with a base hit to center field.
“We did battle and we did show some toughness today,” Leggett said. “We could have let up and cashed it in, but the kids played hard and got ourselves in position to tie the ballgame or win it at the end and we just could not quite get it done.”
After the Cavaliers picked up two runs in the top of the eighth inning, Clemson again fought back as Thomas Brittle singled to right field to score Kennedy, who led off the inning with a base hit to centerfield. The Tigers pulled within three runs, 8-5, when Slaton hustled out an infield hit allowing Krieger to score from third.
It looked like Clemson might draw closer when Jay Baum ripped what looked like a hit down the left field line with runners on first and second, but the ball hit right in front of the bag at third and bounced just foul, forcing home plate umpire, Tony Maners, to call it foul. Two pitches later, Baum flew out to left field and then Steven Duggar struck out looking to end the threat.
“It was foul,” Leggett said. “I was hoping it was fair. It was a tough play.”
Clemson will try to bounce back Tuesday as it host a two-game series with Morehead State starting at 6:30 p.m. The Tigers will play five games this week, all at Doug Kingsmore Stadium.