No. 10 Clemson baseball pounds No. 16 FSU, evens series
A day after Clemson managed only a pair of runs in a 13-inning loss to Florida State, the Tigers’ offense exploded in a 12-7 win against the Seminoles Sunday afternoon at Doug Kingsmore Stadium.
No. 10 Clemson pounded out 13 hits and scored in each of the first five innings as the Tigers evened the series with No. 16 FSU at a game apiece. Game 3 is scheduled for Monday at 7 p.m. It will be televised by ESPN2.
All nine of Clemson’s batters recorded at least one hit and scored at least one run as Clemson earned a critical victory to maintain a two-game lead in the ACC Atlantic over second-place N.C. State.
Seth Beer, Chris Williams and Grayson Byrd all homered for the Tigers, who improved to 34-12 (18-8) with the win. FSU falls to 32-15 (14-11).
“Well, a great offensive ballgame from our guys today,” Tigers coach Monte Lee said. “Our balance was really, really good. Only three strikeouts on offense, so we swung the bats very well, very aggressive.”
The Seminoles jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning on solo home runs by Jackson Lueck and Cal Raleigh, but Clemson quickly fought back to even the score as Patrick Cromwell delivered a two-run, two-out single with the bases loaded to tie the game at 2.
Cromwell finished with a pair of hits and scored a run while delivering perhaps the biggest hit of the game.
He drove an 0-1 pitch back up the middle off FSU starter Andrew Karp as the Tigers matched their run total from the previous night with one swing of the bat.
“That’s a pretty tough letdown to have bases loaded and not be able to get anything out of that, especially after they had hit two home runs in the first. They’re up 2-0 right out of the gate and we needed to be able to answer and we did. That was a huge at bat for us right there,” Lee said.
The score was tied at 3 entering the bottom of the third inning when Clemson broke the game open. Grayson Byrd blasted a three-run homer to give the Tigers a 6-3 lead, before Sam Hall drove in a run with an RBI groundout and Robert Jolly delivered an RBI single to put Clemson ahead by 5.
“I thought Byrd’s three-run homer was a big one right there just because in that big inning in the third it allowed us to distance ourselves from them and keep them down,” Lee said.
The Tigers scored a run in the fourth and three in the fifth to take a 12-4 lead before the Seminoles tacked on a few runs late.
Tigers starter Brooks Crawford (6-2) earned the win, allowing four earned runs on four solo homers in five innings of work.
The two teams combined for 21 hits, including 10 extra- base hits and seven homers as the wind was blowing out for much of the evening.
Raleigh finished with three hits and hit a pair of solo homers for the Seminoles.
“It was a tough day to pitch. You could tell in batting practice, there were guys hitting balls over the batter’s eye and over the scoreboard in BP. It’s very rare that you see the wind blow like that here at Doug Kingsmore,” Lee said. “It was just a really good day to hit, but some of those balls were hit pretty well too… Both teams swung the bats well today. I thought we hit it just a little bit better, and we were able to hold on.”
The rubber match will feature FSU starter Cole Sands against Clemson lefty Jake Higginbotham. The Tigers will need Higginbotham to go late into the game after closer Ryley Gilliam threw 4 innings Saturday, reliever Ryan Miller threw 3 1/3 innings Saturday and Alex Schnell, Spencer Strider and Carson Spiers each threw 1 1/3 innings Sunday.
This story was originally published May 6, 2018 at 7:14 PM with the headline "No. 10 Clemson baseball pounds No. 16 FSU, evens series."