Matchup with USCU

May 28, 2025, 12:50 PM

This is a longer post with a lot of information, so I’ll give a brief overview to start. USCU mashes and scores a lot of runs, which is their entire identity. Their pitching is average even for the Big South (outside of ace Amp Phillips), so expect Clemson try to work counts and get to the bullpen as quickly as they can. If the Tigers can avoid giving up homeruns (five guys with over 10 homers), they can neutralize the USCU offense. Only two guys on the USCU team are true base stealing threats, so overall they won’t have to worry much about getting run on. USCU struggles AGAINST base stealing, so Bakich should be aggressive and take bases when they can. Overall, USCU is a super underrated team and can beat anyone, even with an okay pitching staff.

USCU is by far the best team out of the Big South and one of the more underrated low-major teams in the country. They are absolutely loaded on offense, and the name of the game for them is simply to score as many runs as possible to outdo opponents scoring on their average pitching staff. Going 19-5 in the Big South, they were always the favorites to make it to the tournament, and geographically, they will be playing in a familiar area. One thing about this team, however, is they didn’t do well outside of the conference. They went 17-18 in the non-conference portion of the schedule, although they did have a 2-3 record against P4 teams (including a 15-5 run rule win against our friend Nancy from Raleigh), so not a complete pushover by any means.

Like I said, the goal of the team is simply to win the war of attrition and outscore the opponent by as much as possible. First year manager Kane Sweeney was hitting coach last year, and he is clearly putting all of the focus into developing the offensive side of the ball. They had 14 wins by 10+ runs and scored 15 runs or more in 11 games, and three games going over 20 runs. They currently have seven regular hitters who are all above average NCAA hitters, and two guys who are right on the average line. The three to look out for are Scott Campbell, Henry Zenor, and the best hitter by far Johnny Sweeney (who is up for national awards). Between those three, they have a 0.373/0.491/0.637 triple slash, and account for a third of all RBIs on the roster. It doesn’t get much better looking further down the lineup, as they have three guys not previously listed who have over 10 homeruns on the year, including homerun leader Scott Newman, who is the prototypical 4-hole hitter; 18 homeruns, 0.300 average, and 75 strikeouts, which would be second on Clemson’s roster (behind Paino who has 80). They do like to steal bases, going 88-116 on the year, about a 76% SB rate. Most of the stolen bags come from three guys, Vance Sheahan, Scott Newman, and Scott Campbell. They account for 65% of all stolen bases, and 64% of all tries. Sheahan and Campbell are the guys to really keep an eye on, going 46-54 between the two of them, so the pitching staff will have to keep them at bay.

The glaring weakness they have is they give up stolen bases way more often. Opponents have stolen 111 bags on 134 tries (83% success rate), which will play into Clemson’s favor, as the Tigers went 79-95, resulting in the same success rate of 83%. They did have some struggles on defense, owning a 0.963 fielding percentage, which is lower than Clemson’s 0.975 clip. Ultimately, this doesn’t mean much, as it comes out to about ½ errors more per game for USCU, so nothing incredibly interesting.

These numbers look scary, and a team who mashes the ball the way USCU always makes you a little nervous, but when you look at pitching, it becomes clear why they need to score so many runs. The team ERA sits at 5.40 (Clemson’s is 5.05), with a WHIP of 1.490 (Clemson's is 1.375), and a FIP of 6.50 (Clemson's is 5.91). Strictly looking at runs/game, USCU gives up about one more run than the Tigers, meaning the errors they do make typically are pretty costly, shown in the disparity between ERA and runs/game. Going down the list, they do not strike teams out as much as they should, only striking out about 20% of batters, and walking about 10%. Clemson has a 3.5% better SO% and 1% lower BB%, which might help our weakness of striking out a lot and their strength of not striking out a lot. It will be interesting to see how our pitchers attack them on Friday, and how they attack ours. Their best pitcher, who in all likelihood will start Friday, is Amp Phillips, posting a 3.58 ERA in 78 innings. He has the 2nd most starts behind starter Chris Torres, who has a 4.72 ERA in 76.1 innings. Phillips is not a strict starter, only starting 11 of his 19 appearances, but he has one complete game this year and also leads the team in saves with two. The one definite conclusion you can make about the pitching staff is that there is no definite, every pitcher has appeared in about every fashion, although only three guys have above 10 starts, the two I mentioned before and Darin Kuskie, who has a 5.83 ERA in 54 innings. I think the lack of quality bullpen arms can play into Clemson’s approach really well, with Clemson loving to run up pitch counts and get the starter out early. If they can get to the bullpen, I like Clemson’s chances of winning a lot more.

When USCU faced off with Clemson in early March, the final result looked pretty one-sided, with a 7-0 Clemson win. The Tigers put up 7 runs on 8 hits with 4 homers and walked 9 times with only 7 Ks. USCU put up 9 hits in 34 ABs, but struck out 12 times, their third highest on the season. Both teams went with a bullpen game, with McGovern and Bailey doing most of the work, going 7 innings between them. Two of the starters I listed previously for USCU, Phillips and Kuskie, actually pitched 2 innings each against Clemson and didn’t give up any runs with only one walk and five strikeouts. I would imagine the starters won’t look much different on both sides, although Bailey/Titsworth might get the nod this Friday to start rather than McGovern, to save Knaak for the 2/3 seed matchup. I think, again, if Clemson can just get to the bullpen, they have a good shot of winning. They’ve played a lot more small ball lately, with squeeze plays and stolen bases, so if they can manufacture some runs, I feel pretty good going into Friday.

flag link

military_tech

thumb_down

thumb_up

Re: Matchup with USCU

I like it. I don't mind a long read when it's good info like this. I disagree on the pitching, I think we might keep our rotation. I could see where CEB would use the mindset that you have to win the first one. Does anyone remember how EB played it last year?

USCU makes me nervous. Sometimes the balls fly out of DKS. That first game, they hit well but left 9 on base. Just couldn't get that timely hit. As for stealing, their catcher threw out our best base stealer purify.

We didn't do much better. We won't see max Bianchi again. He came in and threw BP. There was no scouting on Bailey early season and he looked like a sure fire starter and eventually took over starting when league play got going... and we figured out that wasn't working well.

Hence, that's why I think we might pitch knaak. Every games different but they bottled us up for 7 innings. Sure they wanted to beat us, but every team sorts their lineups and pitching in early season games, and especially mid-week games.

Sadly, we're a weak hitting team. It's concerning that if we get too cute playing the look ahead pitching game, we could find ourselves down 4-0 quick. It'll be fun and interesting.

Re: Matchup with USCU

Matchup with USCU

Re: Matchup with USCU

Re: Matchup with USCU

Re: Matchup with USCU

Re: Matchup with USCU

Re: Matchup with USCU

Re: Matchup with USCU

Re: Matchup with USCU

TigerBoard POTD