By William Qualkinbush.
By William Qualkinbush.
Jack Leggett was on the radio with me this morning. It was a solid interview in which we discussed several topics of interest related to the baseball program.
Early on in the interview, we shared a laugh about how long it has been since the Tigers played a game in Doug Kingsmore Stadium. It really seems like a while, and it has been, at least relative to what normally happens with the Clemson baseball schedule.
Clemson hosts Wake Forest this weekend, and Friday’s game will be the first at home for the Tigers in 12 days. That’s not a ton of time, but the five-game road stretch is definitely a rarity for a program like Leggett’s.
There’s no mistaking how weird this year’s slate of games has been. A home series with Maine was moved to Augusta. Another home game with Charleston Southern was postponed. The Tigers have already played midweek road games at Coastal Carolina and Western Carolina, as well as a neutral site game against Michigan State.
Add this to traditional away and neutral site games against South Carolina and a couple of conference road series, and the schedule has skewed significantly away from Doug Kingsmore Stadium this season.
Historically, Clemson’s baseball slate tends to be front-loaded, but that’s certainly not the case this year. After 23 games, the Tigers have only played nine times in their home ballpark—the lowest in Leggett’s two-plus decades as head coach. There have been nine road games and seven in neutral sites.
Since Leggett’s tenure began in 1994, the Tigers have played an average of 16 times at home in the first 23 games. In 2002, Clemson actually had 21 of its first 23 games at home, jumping out to a 22-1 start. The previous lowest number of home games in that time frame was 10 in 2001, when the Tigers were 16-7 overall.
Right now, the Tigers sit at 12-11 overall and 4-5 at home. Obviously, the home record should improve as more and more games are played in the friendly confines of DKS. Many of Clemson’s ACC brethren have played significantly more home games at this point of the year, and an argument could be made that the difference in home games correlates with wins and losses for several teams.
Only four ACC teams have played a smaller percentage of their games at home than Clemson so far: Notre Dame (5 of 23), Virginia (6 of 23), Boston College (2 of 21), and Pittsburgh (7 of 23). Only the Fighting Irish (15) have a higher RPI than Clemson, which currently resides at 50.
On the flip side, Duke has played 18 of its first 25 games at home, Florida State has played 18 of its first 26 at home, and Wake Forest has played 18 of 27 in its home ballpark. All three have had better-than-expected starts to the season, which could possibly be explained by the large number of home games each has enjoyed thus far.
Obviously, level of play is a determining factor here, and Clemson will need to play well to earn the kind of winning streak necessary to vault itself back into the national conversation. It will be interesting to see if playing more games away from home forces some teams toward the .500 mark and if the opposite is true for the Tigers.
This weekend, Clemson begins a ten-game home stand in a ballpark that may seem unfamiliar at the moment. Leggett and his ballclup hope the weirdness doesn’t last very long.
God Bless!
WQ