A winning week for the season’s first homestand saw Erik Bakich‘s Tigers move up in the latest college baseball Top 25 rankings.
Monday morning, Clemson (6-1) slotted up one spot to as high as No. 7 in the polls, with Baseball America and Perfect Game.
“Clemson bounced back nicely from its loss to Ole Miss with a 4-0 week that included a pair of victories over both Virginia Commonwealth and North Carolina A&T. It was a balanced attack offensively for the Tigers, who received contributions from almost everyone in their starting nine. The bullpen was fantastic, while Justin LeGuernic put the exclamation point on the weekend and allowed just one hit across six shutout innings. After a midweek matchup with Winthrop, Clemson this weekend takes on rival South Carolina in what is always an excellent series,” Baseball America wrote.
The three-city series starts Friday in Clemson (7 p.m.) and moves on to Greenville’s Fluor Field Saturday (1:30 p.m.) and South Carolina’s Founders Park Sunday (5 p.m.). The unranked Gamecocks improved to 8-0 with a home sweep of Milwaukee last weekend. Clemson won the series’ first two games last year, while the teams didn’t make up a rain-postponed outing in Founders Park.
D1Baseball.com’s rankings also moved Clemson up a spot, to No. 13. An SEC quartet of Texas A&M, LSU, Tennessee and Arkansas lead that poll, followed by North Carolina. Six ACC teams are ranked total with Florida State (7), Virginia (10), Wake Forest (12) and Duke (17) also included.
The Tigers rank in the middle of the pack in the ACC in runs scored but toward the bottom in home runs (2). The staff ERA is next-to-last (5.46), but they do have the fourth-most strikeouts (74).
Transfer Dominic Listi is in the Top 10 in the league in on-base percentage (.588) and RBIs (11). Aidan Knaak is fifth in strikeouts (15).
Clemson returns to action at home with Winthrop on Tuesday (4 p.m.).
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