And After 8 ACC Teams Entered…Clemson Is Still Standing?

Posted by Brandon Rink on June 24, 2010 under ACC Baseball | Comments are off for this article

Yep.

Clemson, the team with the worst record of any College World Series team (45-23), is 2-0 after taking out two of the nation’s hottest teams in no. 1 national seed Arizona State (6-3) and ACC-killer Oklahoma (6-4).

It just doesn’t make sense. One of the stat gurus I read regularly said this about Clemson going in:

As far as Clemson goes, I’m not sure what to say except enjoy the ride.  Expectations are low and the pressure is on Arizona State.  The Tigers are far and away the worst fielding team in the series and that could haunt them at any time.  These teams take advantage of weak spots and Clemson has a few of them – namely defense and the bullpen, which is not a comforting thought.  It could be two and barbeque for the Tigers, but baseball is a strange and mostly unpredictable game.

Strange and mostly unpredictable it is.

Though Clemson’s strength has been with hitting, the starting pitching has been key in the Atlantic Division, Auburn Regional, and Clemson Super Regional titles along with the 2-0 record so far in the CWS. From the Super Regionals on, Clemson’s starting staff has given up 8 earned runs in 31 innings of work –  with 4 of the 5 games ending in winning decisions for the starters.

Of course, 81 runs spread over the NCAA Tournament doesn’t hurt either. Clemson six-hole hitter and third baseman John Hinson is 5-for-9 with 4 RBIs in the College World Series. Every Tigers starter had a hit against the no. 1 Sun Devils on Monday.

Clemson plays the winner of today’s Oklahoma-South Carolina elimination game. SC is throwing ace Blake Cooper while OU is throwing third starter Zach Neal. South Carolina winning would probably be the best result as their pitching staff is the more taxed of the two.

FSU’s Run Ends

Florida State was the ACC Champion after the run a couple weeks ago, and they played like it throughout the NCAA Tournament until they ran into a stout TCU Horned Frogs squad. There seems to be a lot of angst after going 1-2 with the win over Florida and two losses to TCU, but I think the ‘Noles went about as far as they could have. The Horned Frogs were just a better team. I think ScalpEm summed it up pretty well:

Either way, I don’t feel like harping on that this morning. I’d rather focus on the players. Three weeks ago I figured the Noles had no chance to do much of anything in the ACC Tournament or in the playoffs. Today I sit here looking at the 2010 ACC Champions that survived regionals and super regionals, lost to a damn good TCU pitcher in Game 1 of the CWS, eliminated the Gators (thankfully) and then had a meltdown against a good TCU team. It hurts, it looks bad, but as a whole it’s a pretty good overall season.

Poll Time…