With last week’s frustrating series loss against North Carolina and a midweek victory over Charlotte behind them, the baseball Tigers face yet another grueling challenge in ACC play. Knocking off the #9 ranked Virginia Cavaliers in Charlottesville is a tall task for Clemson, but as games 1 and 3 of last weekend’s series with the Tar Heels showed, Clemson isn’t necessarily as far off from beating top tier teams as it once seemed.
UVA is 26-12 on the year with a 10-8 ACC record. Last weekend the Cavs
took two of three against Notre Dame in South Bend. UVA also dropped a midweek road game against VCU in Richmond 6-2.
There are a lot of positives for the Tigers coming into this series. The emergence of freshman outfielder Jackson Moore has been much needed. Ariston Veasey continues to look like one of the more reliable bullpen arms for Clemson. On Tuesday night, he entered with bases loaded and no outs and got out of the jam like Houdini, retiring three straight Charlotte batters. Tristan McCladdie made his return Tuesday night. McCladdie took a pitch to the head in the Stanford series, and after a little over a week off, he was back in Clemson’s lineup in Charlotte, batting with a facemask on his helmet.
Thursday Night’s starter for Clemson will be Aiden Knaak, who is coming off back to back Friday night wins and had probably his best game of the year in the 9-5 win over North Carolina las Friday. He will be facing UVA lefty Henry Zatkowski. Friday will feature Michael Sharman get the nod against lefty Kyle Johnson. And neither club has announced their pitcher for Saturday. With Drew Titsworth suffering an injury in last Sunday’s game against UNC and Talan Bell working 2.1 innings against Charlotte, it will be interesting to see who Erik Bakich gives the nod to Saturday.
