Tiger bats come alive in rout of USC Upstate |
CLEMSON – Jack Leggett’s Clemson baseball team entered Wednesday night’s game as losers of five straight and six of their last seven and with a big weekend series against North Carolina on the horizon, the Tigers needed something good to happen against USC Upstate. The good came in bunches, as did the runs, as the 20th-ranked Tigers hit five home runs, including a record-tying three by John Hinson, in trouncing the Spartans 22-4 at Doug Kingsmore Stadium, breaking the losing streak and improving Clemson to 24-14 with the Tar Heel (22-16) series on deck starting Friday. The last Tiger to smack three home runs in a game was Kyle Parker, who belted three against Wake Forest in March of 2008. Hinson, who was 0-for-13 with five strikeouts this past weekend at Georgia Tech, had a solo homer in the second inning, a three-run shot in the third and a three-run homer in the sixth, and overall had five hits in six at-bats to go along with seven RBI to lead the 18-hit attack for the Tigers. Hinson said he didn’t know that his 8th-inning at-bat could have made Clemson history if he had connected for a fourth homer. Instead, he lined a single to center for his fifth hit. “I didn’t know that,” Hinson said. “Someone just told me. That would have been cool, but I am happy with what happened tonight. Coming off this past weekend, I just kept my head in it and got lucky. It worked out. I got some pitches to hit, and threw my hands in.” Hinson said that it was also the perfect game for the entire team considering the raised stakes this coming weekend. “This is exactly what we needed,” he said. “We got a lot of hits and got the bats rolling – we got hot. This is exactly what we need with Chapel Hill [UNC] coming in this weekend. This is a big weekend for them, and this is a big weekend for us, too.” The Tigers picked a single run in the first, but it was the second inning that opened the floodgates. Clemson had already taken advantage of three walks and a couple of Spartan errors to score two runs when Parker launched his 15th homer of the season, a grand slam, giving Clemson a 7-run cushion. Hinson then followed with his first blast of the night and the Tigers were off to the races. With the homer, Parker becomes the first player in NCAA history to hit 15 home runs and throw 20 touchdown passes in the same season. “It was a good night and we swung the bats real well,” Parker said. “Hopefully this will carry over into the weekend. We all had fun and I thought we needed to come out and win like this. Hinson was on fire, he was just swinging it. He is definitely capable, and it was good to see him come out and swing the bat like he did.” The Tigers plated seven more runs in third, including Mike Freeman’s fifth homer of the year, and then added two in the fourth, three in the sixth and two more in the eighth to account for the final runs, and Leggett said it was good to see his club play well in all phases. “Yeah, we came out and swung the bats pretty good,” Leggett said. “We got good defense, good pitching, and played pretty good overall. There were a couple of bumps, but other than that is was all good for us. It was good to just get a W. It has been a while since we played on all cylinders. We just needed to get a W and get our feet back on the ground and get some confidence going into this weekend.” David Haselden pitched two innings and picked up the win, improving his record to 4-3.
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