One of the major issues Clemson baseball faced last week when they went 1-3 against USC Upstate and South Carolina was pitching. Specifically bullpen pitching.
Another issue was the planned starting pitcher for Sunday’s game, Caden Grice, was ejected from Saturday’s game, leaving him unavailable Sunday.
The good news is that made Grice available to start Tuesday’s game against East Tennessee State in his first appearance on the mound this season and the bullpen was solid in 7 innings, giving up a single run in the Tigers 4-1 win.
Grice faced 10 batters over his two innings of work, but was not necessarily efficient, taking 47 pitches to complete his work for the day and only 28 of those were strikes as he struck out 2 and walked 3.
Joe Allen then came on and gave up a run over three innings of work and he, too had some control issues, walking 4 and giving up 4 hits.
Jackson Lindley was superb, earning the save with 4 shutout innings of work, giving up only 1 hit and 1 walk to the 14 batters he faced.
The Tigers plated three runs in the second, but were held scoreless the rest of the way with the exception of a Cam Cannarella lead off homer in the 5th and were just 1 for 7 with runners in scoring position on the day.
It was more of the same on Wednesday. After starter Jay Dill gave up 3 runs in 2.2 innings, Reed Garris, Nathan Dvorsky and Casey Tallent hurled 6.1 shutout innings, with Dvorsky being credited with the win in the first appearance of his college career as the Tigers beat Presbyterian 5-3.
Dvorsky pitched two shutout innings, allowing only a single walk while striking out three.
Cam Cannarella continued his torrid start for Clemson baseball
Cannarella continued to torch the ball, racking up a couple of hits and 3 RBI against the Blue Hose and now has a hit in the first 13 games of his Clemson career.
The four Clemson pitchers combined for 15 strikeouts with Dill and Garris notching 5 each.
Up next for the Tigers is a three game series with Georgia State (9-3) a team that has scored in double digits in 7 of their 12 games on the season and just beat Presbyterian 2 of 3 last weekend.