My personal opinion on Upstate

May 30, 2025, 11:58 AM

Make no mistake, this game will not be easy, and needs to be approached like an ACC opponent. Upstate is hot.

However, they rely on a lot of power, and the wind is blowing in tonight. Clemson seems to put the ball in play to produce RBIs a whole heck of a lot more than leaving the park. I think the wind favors Clemson.

Their pitcher tonight is the real deal. I believe he pitched two shutout innings against us in the midweek earlier this year. However, their pen pretty much sucks. Patient plate approach, fouling balls off, and limiting the strikeouts early is key for us tonight. I'm going to scream if we consistently watch strike one go right by us, and then swing off the plate at strike two.

They lead the nation in runs scored, and have three players with an OPS over 1.000. That is insane for a school of their size, even if they don't play top competition, again, I think this points to the wind favoring Clemson.

If the offense does not show up, we will lose, we will not be able to hold their offense down forever, no matter how well Titsworth pitches.

My keys to the game:
Put a high pitch count on their starter early.
Titsworth needs to execute his secondary pitches for strikes. Only a fastball working against this team is a recipe for disaster.
Be a team run scoring offense, back to the Bakich basics.

If we do the above, I do believe we will advance. But if we don't have good plate discipline, and don't execute our pitching. It will be a longggg night. They will let their starter go until he can't pitch anymore.

A couple things to watch for tonight:
How many innings can Titsworth give? That will set our pen up for the rest of the weekend.
If I remember correctly, they are pretty darn good at throwing out base stealers, we have been much more aggressive on the bath path recently. I'm interested to see that small battle within the game.

Oh, and I hope Kentucky and WVU go 15 innings and use 10 pitchers each

Go Tigers!! This is the time of year we play the other 60 games for!!

flag link

military_tech

thumb_down