Clemson is in a pretty good spot as Erik Bakich’s team prepares for the stretch run of the regular season.

Having won all five of its ACC series to this point, the third-ranked Tigers are battling for the top seed in the ACC Tournament. Clemson (33-6, 11-4 ACC) is currently in second place in the league standings behind Georgia Tech, but the Yellow Jackets (29-7, 14-4 ACC) have played three more conference games. The two teams are actually tied in the loss column.

After scoring 27 runs in taking two of out three from Stanford last weekend, the offense seems to be rounding into shape. However, the weekend rotation has shown some signs of weakness in recent weeks.

Most of the issues centered around the Sunday starter, but since BJ Bailey was inserted into that role three weeks ago at Georgia Tech, the Tigers have gotten much more consistency out of that spot in the rotation. Bailey did get roughed up some in his last start on Sunday, allowing seven runs in four innings, but that was just the second time all season that the veteran left-hander has allowed more than one run in any appearance.

The concern now lies with that Saturday spot. After an extremely strong start to the season, Ethan Darden has struggled in recent weeks. Since the start of ACC play, the lefty has gone more than four innings just once and has seen his ERA rise from 1.64 to 6.07.

“We obviously have an ace in Aidan Knaak, and then I think we need some stability in the weekend rotation. We need to solidify that,” Bakich said. “We have two premium backend guys in (Lucas) Mahlstedt and (Reed) Garris, and then we have some guys that we feel really good about in (Drew) Titsworth and (Nathan) Dvorsky and Joe Allen.

“But we’ve got depth on our pitching staff for sure and have to figure out how to get as many quality starts on the weekend as possible. Because (Saturday) it hurt us a bit and we’ve survived it where a starting pitcher has been out of the game early and it taxes the bullpen. It’s mostly happened on Sundays, until BJ kind of solidified things on Sundays, but now it’s happened a couple of times on Saturday too.”

With several key ACC series coming up over the next few weeks, including a three-game set at home against a ranked Louisville squad beginning Thursday, Bakich is fully aware that the Tigers need to get more out of their weekend starters, particularly that Saturday spot.

After the series at home against the Cardinals, Clemson will hit the road for two more tough series. The first is at NC State, and then there’s a trip to Tallahassee for a matchup against a Top 10 Florida State team.

With his team battling not only for one of the ever-important top four seeds in the ACC Tournament but also a national seed in the NCAA Tournament, Bakich knows now is the time to get the starting pitching ironed out.

With there being no midweek game this week and only two more the rest of the season, some of the pitchers the Tigers have been using in those games will now be available to throw on weekends. Freshman Talan Bell, who has been the midweek starter for the past three weeks, could find himself getting an opportunity at some point.

“We’ll just have to figure out how to just put these guys in the best spots to be successful. And we enter a period also where we only have two midweek games left on the season. So I think we can be a little more strategic in what strategy we’re using for who’s the best guy to go after Aidan, the best guy to go after whoever. It will be nice to have minimal midweek games where we didn’t have to burn some guys. And now some of the guys who have only been pitching on the midweeks get the opportunity to now move to the weekend.”

Again, it’s an issue the team has been dealing with most of the season. If not on Sundays, then on Saturdays. At the same time, the Tigers have proven more than capable of winning games in which the starting pitcher struggles.

“If we have a second half like we did the first half, I think we will be in pretty good shape,” Bakich said.