Despite the struggles over the first seven weeks of ACC play, the Clemson baseball team’s postseason hopes are still alive.
After taking two out of three from a Top 20 Boston College team last weekend, then knocking off No. 8 Coastal Carolina on Tuesday, the Tigers are riding a three-game winning streak and have quietly jumped back up to No. 37 in the RPI.
Despite the poor conference record (8-16), the metrics still favor this Clemson team, due in part to a strong strength of schedule. With No. 14 Florida State coming to town this weekend, Erik Bakich’s team has a golden opportunity to make another jump and just maybe get themselves back into the conversation.
“The mentality feels right,” the head coach said. “Now we’ve got a long way to go before we can make a statement like that. A lot of work to do. It starts with getting better and getting ready for Florida State. But yeah, a totally different feeling right now and the last few weeks compared to last week.”
However, while some on the outside looking in may be keeping one eye on the team’s postseason chances, the Tigers are only worried about what is in front of them. That is Friday’s series opener against the Seminoles.
“Every game we play is the biggest game of the season,” Bakich added. “We are against the wall. We are just fighting our way out of it and trying to make moves and gain ground. Each game that we play is the most important game of our season.”
As a matter of fact, Bakich doesn’t much care whether or not his team is currently projected to play in the postseason. With the way this season has played out, with the Tigers losing six of the first seven ACC series, which included getting swept twice, Bakich is more concerned with keeping the little bit of momentum his team has built due to the three-game winning streak.
For now, the focus is primarily on playing a better brand of baseball, something Bakich has seen over the past few games.
“Who cares? It doesn’t matter,” Bakich responded when asked about the projections. “None of it matters. There is signal, and there is noise. And that is just noise. Signal is how we play, and that is all that we are focused on. The noise is not important to making us play good.”
“Whether anyone writes about us at this point, it does not matter. All the writing has been done about what has happened the past seven weeks. I don’t know if anyone is reading it anyway. But we don’t care. We just want to play well, find a way to come out on top and win some ball games.”
Game one between the Tigers and Seminoles is set to be played on Friday, with first pitch at 6 p.m. Redshirt freshman Dane Moehler is scheduled to make his second consecutive series-opening start, while Florida State will counter with lefty Wes Mendes.
