Brooms out for No. 10 Dallas Baptist: Clemson takes game three of the series
CLEMSON -- Another weekend, another sweep for Clemson baseball. This time, it came against a very impressive No. 10 Dallas Baptist club.
The Tigers did just about everything right throughout the entire weekend, including the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader where Clemson won 3-2.
Closer Riley Gilliam struck out Dallas Baptist’s final batter with the bases loaded to preserve the one-run win. For the second weekend in a row, Gilliam stepped off the mound after the final out and made a sweeping motion towards his catcher as the Patriots walked off the field with their heads hung low.
Clemson outscored Dallas Baptist 24-4 throughout the weekend. The bats heated up and the pitching continued to be dynamite as the Tigers made things look almost too easy in all phases of the game.
“I don’t know if I would have expected this,” head coach Monte Lee said after the game three victory. “We did pretty much everything this weekend. We hit the long ball, we were able to play the short game, we played great defense, and we pitched exceptionally well. On all fronts, we played great baseball. Hopefully, we can continue to do that.”
The day began with another bludgeoning from Clemson’s bats. With all the attention put on Clemson’s three-headed monster of Seth Beer, Logan Davidson, and Chris Williams, people are quick to forget how lethal some of Clemson’s other bats are.
Drew Wharton gave a quick reminder to the fans in Doug Kingsmore Stadium that he has some pop in his bat as well. The senior hit not one, but two three-run home runs in game one of the double-header as his career-high six RBIs led Clemson to a 9-1 victory.
“He’s been the same guy for three years,” Lee said of Wharton’s performance. “He’s one of the hardest workers on our team. He’s a positive young man, even when he wasn’t getting the opportunities to play that I would have loved to have given him. He’s one of those guys you always feel bad when he’s not in the lineup because he does so many things so well.”
Wharton’s six hits and eight RBIs over the weekend is sure to spark his confidence moving forward to Clemson’s next weekend series against in-state rival South Carolina. He’s been working all offseason on his approach to his at-bats and knowing what he wants to do in certain counts.
While the bats were electric all weekend, the pitching staff was just as impressive. Jake Higginbotham got his second win of the season after pitching for seven innings, striking out seven batters and only giving up five hits on 77 pitches. The pitching staff has made life easy on Clemson throwing up zero after zero in consecutive innings.
Most people are surprised at how well Clemson has pitched in its first seven games. This was an area that was supposed to be a question mark for this team.
Wharton isn’t surprised at all.
“They’ve been unreal,” Wharton said.
All three of Clemson’s starting pitchers this weekend didn’t give up any earned runs in 18 ⅓ innings.
Clemson needed its good pitching to win game three as the Tigers only strung together four hits. A Seth Beer two-run home run in the first inning gave Clemson a lead it would not give up. A Patrick Cromwell sacrifice bunt in the eighth inning put the Tigers in position to score on a sacrifice fly to give them an insurance run they ended up needing.
Gilliam came into the game to close the series down. He had to pitch out of a bases-loaded jam with one out, but Lee was impressed with how his closer handled the situation.
The Tigers are now 7-0 and face Winthrop on Tuesday before the weekend series against the Gamecocks. To sweep any team in baseball is not an easy task, but Clemson has made it look relatively easy the last two weekends. It’s just the momentum the Tigers needed to start the season.
“You don’t get too many opportunities to sweep an opponent,” Lee said. “Just overall a great weekend by our guys and you got to give our guys a lot of credit.”