Clemson Baseball wrapped up a series win over Kennesaw State with a 7-2 victory over the Owls on Sunday afternoon at Doug Kingsmore Stadium on the Clemson campus.
After a disastrous Friday loss and a perplexing performance in a Saturday win, it felt good to see the team play a mostly clean game on Sunday.
The Sunday game was all about freshman pitcher Aidan Knaack, who hurled 6 shutout innings, giving up only two hits and a walk while throwing 52 strikes on 77 pitches.
After struggling a bit in his first outing, Knaak was in command from the outset on Sunday, setting the tone as the Tigers scored early and coasted to the win.
Despite the series win, the ugly Friday loss appeared to cast a weird vibe over the team and fans that has the potential to linger into the season.
Clemson has lost many baseball games in many ways throughout recent memory, but none were more disheartening than Friday, not necessarily because of the score, but because of the lack of effort from the team.
Hoping to flush the Friday debacle, the Tigers showed up Saturday and committed six errors, but managed to pull out the win with a late rally.
Head coach Erik Bakich appeared dumbfounded by his team's performance in postgame availability, seemingly at a loss for words at times.
Erik Bakich Talks Bounce Back Win Over Kennesaw State https://t.co/L6JlAjy4ST
— All Clemson Tigers (@AllClemsonTiger) February 24, 2024
For me, for the first time in Bakich's year-plus tenure at Clemson doubts crept in. After all, this is a team that Bakich said in the preseason was driven and wasn't a team that needed to be taught "attitude or effort".
It sure looked that way Friday.
It was one game out of 56 and while too much shouldn't be made of it, the sheer shock factor it left should be a wakeup call for the Tigers.
Clemson Baseball hosts USC Upstate on Tuesday before facing South Carolina over the weekend
The Tigers host the USC Upstate Spartans on Tuesday at 4 p.m. at Doug Kingsmore Stadium on ACC Network Extra, hopefully with multiple cameras working.
Upstate is 4-3, having dropped 3 straight to Kentucky to open the season, before beating Western Carolina, Quinnipiac, Canisius, and St. Joseph's.
Over the weekend the Tigers have their annual rivalry series with South Carolina, who at 7-1 also suffered an embarrassing loss over the weekend by a score of 11-2 to Belmont.
The Gamecocks swept through Miami of Ohio (3 games), Winthrop and Queens University before taking two of three from Belmont and host Gardner-Webb on Tuesday.
Friday's game is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Founder's Park in Columbia, with Saturday's contest set for 4 p.m. at Segra Park and Sunday's finale set for 2 p.m. at Doug Kingsmore Stadium in Clemson.
Friday's game is scheduled to be televised on SEC+, while Saturday and Sunday are scheduled for ACC Network Extra.