Clemson Baseball: Inside the Numbers of Beer's Blazing Bat

Seth Beer began last week in a slump of sorts with six home runs and 12 RBI.  Four games later, Beer has ten homers and 24 RBI, National Player of the Week honors and Clemson has four more wins.

The Tigers get a second shot at Coastal Carolina this evening, this time in Clemson.  The Chanticleers will hit the field at Doug Kingsmore with a 21-9 record and a 9 beside their RPI Ranking.

Resume 

This evening's game represents another shot at beating a top 50 RPI team as the Tigers attempt to polish their resume over the second half of the season. 

Tale of the Tape

Clemson now ranks (tied for) 211th (of 297) in batting average, a slight improvement over a weekend of scoring 27 runs in the 3 Boston College games. 

Last week in this space, I talked about Travis Marr. In what seems like a weekly occurrence, I find myself talking about Marr again after he threw 3.1 innings of scoreless relief Saturday, giving up only one hit and a walk while retiring 10 of the 12 batters he faced. Marr also picked up his third win of the season in the contest.

Carson Spiers didn’t appear in the Boston College series, but still leads the team with 13 appearances at the midway point of the season.

This week’s crazy stat: Today's scheduled starter, freshman Spencer Strider, has struck out 29 batters in 17 1/3 innings - that works out to 15 strikeouts per 9 innings pitched.

Pitching

Leading Off

Beer breaks out, but it's the other guys

One of the keys to scoring more runs for the Tigers is the bottom of the lineup.  Beers three run blast Friday night scored the 8th and 9th place batters who had reached on an infield hit and a walk.  Not splitting the atom here, but with Beer batting second in the lineup, it’s important that the lower end of the order find their way on base in any way possible.

Beers other two homers in the series were solo shots, which shows some of the struggles Clemson has had at the bottom and, to some extent, the very top of the lineup.

Batting

Quality At Bats

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

An up and down fielding weekend for the Tigers, especially Jordan Greene, who booted a couple, but also started a key double play Saturday.  Greene  also saved Marr some runs against Furman earlier in the week. 

Actual vs. Expected Record

Three relatively easy wins (final score-wise) has the Tigers expected record at 40.

Upcoming Schedule

Clemson took care of business against Boston College and needs to do the same tonight against Coastal Carolina and on the road against an 11-16 Notre Dame team this coming weekend. 

*Baseball resume information via WarrenNolan.com.