Erik Bakich’s Clemson baseball team continues to push through any and all adversity. In fact, some might call this season’s Tigers the epitome of perseverance.

Injuries have been a major storyline for Bakich’s team in 2024, and they have hampered this Clemson team since the very first week of the season.

Cam Cannarella and Jake Jarrell both missed time early. Reed Garris missed the first coupe of weeks of the season. Nolan Nawrocki also missed extended time. While all are back now, the injuries have continued to mount.

Starting pitcher Tristan Smith is just two weeks removed from having missed a month. Starting shortstop Andrew Cuifo is out for the season with a torn ACL and leftfielder Will Taylor will miss the remainder of the regular season with a broken bone in his wrist.

“You never want injuries to happen to anyone,” Bakich said on ACC PM on Wednesday. “If you have them you hope that their brief and the next man up thing is an opportunity for a guy to get in there for a few weeks.”

However, those injuries have not derailed the Tigers. Bakich’s team enters this weekend’s ACC series against Georgia Tech sitting at 34-9 overall and sitting atop the ACC Atlantic with a 15-6 mark in league play.

“You hate to see (injuries) for guys who you know are so invested and work so hard, but that’s where the team just has to rally together and they truly have to pick each other up,” Bakich said. “And you don’t have to replace a guy as a one for one, but maybe the whole group can absorb the production and you make it up in the aggregate so to speak.”

And make up for them they have, as the injuries have given players like Jack Crighton and Tristan Bissetta opportunities they might not have otherwise had this season and both have taken full advantage.

Crighton has eight hits in the past five games. Bissetta has six hits and six RBI is his past four games. Both have helped keep the Tigers’ season on track.

Clemson is currently ranked No. 4 in the latest D1 Baseball poll, projected to be a national seed, and they will look to continue that momentum against a hot Yellow Jackets team this weekend.

“We’ve had our fair share,” Bakich said. “We’ve had Friday night starters out, we’ve had catchers out, we’ve had shortstops out, outfielders out and it’s just not gone to script in any way shape or form. But it seems like some of the best stories in college sports in the championship teams and the ones who make it, it never really goes to script. There’s always some other thing, some other storyline or something that happened, the adversity that kind of shaped the group as they went. I do feel like we have that as well. And it’s just part of the journey, part of what makes this team unique and special. You hate it for the guys injured while they’re injured, but it’s also part of this team’s identity.”

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