Clemson Baseball: By the Numbers - 11 Games

Coming off a thrilling series victory over South Carolina, the Clemson Tigers (10-1) face a different challenge in this week's midweek contests.  

For starters, that's contests, plural.  The Tigers play Tuesday (Wofford) and Wednesday (Michigan State at Fluor Field), which means we'll see at least one new mid-week starting pitcher.

Travis Marr has been penciled in for today's start, with Wednesday's starter TBD at press time.

A 5 game week could tax a college pitching staff, but to this point, the Tigers have had plenty of arms to go around, with the excellence shown by the weekend starters, Ryan Miller's ability to eat 3 innings an appearance and quality match-up guys like Mat Clark, Ryne Huggins, and Carson Spiers.  Still, it'll be interesting to see the approach of the coaching staff given that there'll only be 1 day off between Michigan State and Georgia Tech.

Pitching

Leading Off

The focus this week is on how little the opponents score when the Tigers pitchers and fielders get the leadoff batter out.  Clemson pitchers are retiring over 71% of opponents leading off innings out and opponents are averaging a measly .19 runs per inning when the first batter makes an out. 

Logan Davidson broke out of his season long extra-base hit goose egg in the final game against South Carolina with a double and a home run and the Tigers needed both.  Let's hope these mid-week games allow Davidson to get on a roll ahead of the Yellow Jackets arrival Friday.

For the second time this season Justin Hawkins started at second base in the final game of the rivalry series.  You have to think we'll see more of this in the coming days and weeks as Grayson Byrd and Jordan Greene are struggling both at the plate and in the field.

Batting

Quality At Bats

I can't think of a better example of why I track this metric than what Robert Jolly did in the 9th against South Carolina in game 3.  It's wasn't a hit and it doesn't help his slugging percentage, but it was a quality at-bat that made a difference in the game. 

This metric is calculated different ways by different teams and at times can be subjective depending on who is measuring the at-bat.  The goal was to capture as much data as possible to better understand decisions made by the coaching staff.

Defense

Is it time to start worrying yet?  We've seen multiple miscues at second base recently, but not many issues at the other positions.  The left side of the infield has been great and Chris Williams has been exceptional at first.  Seth Beer has made right an adventure at times, but he's also made multiple good plays. 

Actual vs. Expected Record

A 6-1 record in 1 run games is good for the resume below, but is difficult to maintain over the course of a 56 game schedule. "Luck" has been on Clemson's side to some extent and that's reflected in the numbers below.  

Six one-run wins (and 7 total one-run games) in 11 games is unusual.  The Tigers only had 13 one-run games (9-4) across 63 games last season.  

Upcoming Schedule

Very Early Resume Review

It's never too early to review the resume, so here's the latest:

This early in the season RPI and strength of schedules tend to fluctuate wildly from game to game and week to week. This is a starting point and it's still too early to set expectations for this team.

*Baseball resume information via WarrenNolan.com.