By William Qualkinbush.
By William Qualkinbush.
Much effort, ink, and brain power has been used this season to explain away Clemson baseball’s heartbreaking defeats.
Yet again, the Tigers fell to Arizona State in the NCAA Tournament after holding a late lead. In the aftermath of Friday’s 7-5 defeat, people want answers, just as they have all year long.
Some simpletons might suggest that “it doesn’t matter, we just stink” (you know who you are) but we’re smarter than that. We have brains. We have numbers. We can explore this a little bit.
Often, people point to clutch hitting as the culprit. It’s true the Tigers weren’t great in a couple of critical spots against the Sun Devils, but they had three hits in nine at-bats with runners in scoring position. They scored multiple runs twice. Four players had multiple hits.
It was the kind of offensive game teams have when they win. Alas, a win didn’t happen.
You could go to baserunning proficiency, and many fans often do. The Tigers rank among the ACC’s leaders in stolen base percentage at just a hair under 73 percent for the season. That’s including a game in which Clemson was caught twice in four steal attempts, including once on a pickoff.
Frankly, it takes greater context to determine whether a baserunning error was critical or not. Eli White stole second in the first with two outs, but it didn’t matter.
Steven Duggar was picked off with one out in the fourth, but Reed Rohlman struck out to end the inning afterwards. That one didn’t seem huge in the big picture.
Andrew Cox was thrown out stealing second in the seventh, then White walked. That one seems more serious in retrospect.
In reality, the Tigers didn’t get enough men on base in enough innings to put up a plethora of additional runs. It’s doubtful better baserunning would have fixed that, but it hurts to have runners thrown out. That’s pretty clear.
Matthew Crownover had an exceptional start in six innings, then he began to struggle in the seventh. He threw seven straight balls to the fifth and sixth hitters in the order. On a 3-1 pitch, he tried to bring a cutter back onto the outside corner. He missed, and Joey Bielek hit the fastball out to left field.
Crownover tried to come back with an offspeed pitch to start off Brian Serven. He hung it, and Serven deposited it out to left. Suddenly, a slim Clemson lead had become a 4-2 deficit in a matter of two mistake pitches.
The entire season has been spent with fingers crossed whenever the bullpen is called upon to perform, and innings like the eighth against Arizona State are the reasons why. Leadoff walk, sacrifice, stolen base, fielder’s choice—a run scored, just like that. A single led to a pitching change, and after a wild pitch put a pair of runners in scoring position, a two-run triple effectively ended the game.
The Tigers spent all game wisely playing small ball to try to score runs. They had two sacrifices and went deep into at-bats on a regular basis.
In the end, however, it was the long ball that won it for the Sun Devils, and then they utilized small ball to increase the cushion. Offensive versatility won this game for Arizona State, and a lack of power—at least in this particular contest—sent Clemson to the brink of elimination.
Any of these factors could be pointed to as the root cause of Friday’s loss, but the issues are bigger than that. One statistic—more appropriately stated, it’s a group of stats—can both explain this loss and explain what has become a familiar refrain for Clemson fans, players, and coaches this season.
Friday’s game marked the 36th time in 60 games Clemson exited the sixth inning within three runs of the lead. This margin is important because it constitutes a hold or save situation.
In 17 of those games, the Tigers have been ahead after six innings—just as they were against the Sun Devils. Clemson’s record in those games is 11-6, meaning the Tigers are able to hold fewer than two-thirds of close late-game leads.
In 11 tie games after six frames, the Tigers are 3-8. They are 1-7 when trailing after six innings, with the lone win coming in that insane contest against Furman when everything anyone ever learned about baseball went out the window.
In all, Clemson is 15-21 in games with margins of three or fewer runs after six innings, and the Tigers are an even 14-14 when they are ahead or tied in the game. This lack of closeability, we’ll call it—I’m not above making up words to drive home a point—can be caused by any of the issues above.
Runners getting caught on the bases, fielding errors (Friday’s game was clean, for the record), starters giving up late runs, bullpen issues, lack of clutch hitting—if that won-loss record applies to your baseball team, chances are you suffer from all of these at some point.
Clemson has not blown a lead greater than three runs after six innings this season, but the Tigers have blown too many little ones. Of those six losses, five of them have come in the past 19 games—a testament to how close the team has been to very good this season.
In short, I don’t know exactly what element(s) caused the Tigers to lose on Friday. We’ll sum it up by calling it “closeability”. The bad news is that in the NCAA Tournament, you have to win close games like this. You have to protect close leads. You have to break late ties in your favor.
If not, you’re going home. Clemson is now one game away from that fate. I’d suggest being ahead by at least four runs heading into the seventh from now on.
God Bless!
WQ