What’s holding back Clemson baseball? Bakich reacts after regional loss
Omaha, Nebraska is about 1,100 miles northeast of Clemson.
The last 15 years have made it feel even farther.
Since its last appearance in the College World Series in 2010, Clemson has done what it’s done for decades: Field a competitive college baseball team. The Tigers have ripped off 40-win seasons and generally finished at or near the top of the ACC. They’ve developed top MLB talent and packed their home ballpark. They’ve made lots of NCAA Tournaments, and hosted regionals more than half the time.
But they keep hitting roadblocks on their path back to the sport’s biggest stage.
One of the game’s quirkier streaks was extended another year on Sunday as Clemson’s season ended with a 16-4 loss to Kentucky at Doug Kingsmore Stadium.
Coming off a Saturday loss to West Virginia in the winner’s bracket, coach Erik Bakich’s team took an early 2-0 lead in the elimination game before Kentucky hammered the Tigers’ pitchers for 11 combined runs in the third and fourth innings. Clemson also committed a stunning seven outfield errors in a game that would’ve ended in a UK run-rule win after seven innings, had it been the regular season.
A recap of the Tigers’ extended postseason misery, following that blowout:
Clemson has gone 15 years without a College World Series appearance
Clemson has earned a top 16 national seed in the NCAA Tournament and hosted a regional seven times since 2011. The Tigers have failed to advance to the super regionals in six of seven instances, including twice in the last three seasons
Clemson has played in 12 total NCAA regionals (home and away) since its last CWS appearance and failed to advance to the supers in 11 of those 12 regionals
Even in a sport that’s fluky, that’s quite the pattern.
Year in year out, across multiple coaches, the Tigers have been good — at times, really good — but never great. Those postseason woes plagued Jack Leggett’s Clemson teams late in his career, Monte Lee’s teams for his entire tenure and each of Bakich’s first three Tigers rosters. Close but no cigar … over and over and over.
Of course it can get maddening.
The latest sputter came this weekend, as a combination of poor pitching, cold bats and sloppy play doomed the Tigers in losses to West Virginia and Kentucky and cleared the way for someone other than Clemson to win the Clemson Regional.
Again.
“The way this regional went certainly stings,” Bakich said Sunday. “And I’m sure we will dissect it from every angle and make sure that we’re doing everything in our power not to feel like this — because we hear it, we know it, we see it.”
“Clemson baseball hasn’t been to Omaha since 2010. We got it. We know. We are very aware. And we’re going to do everything in our power to get there.”
What went wrong in 2025?
Each season exists in a vacuum. Bakich admitted this year’s Clemson team probably overachieved a bit, given how much production they lost from the 2024 roster that reached the team’s only super regional since 2010 before getting swept by Florida.
Clemson’s 2025 team had the lowest team batting average of Bakich’s tenure (.278), and injuries seriously impacted its pitching rotation. If a Tigers team was going to break the Omaha streak, it probably wasn’t going to be this one, which lost nine of 12 games in April and May and nearly missed out on a top 16 national seed.
But the Tigers still stacked up 45 wins, won their first 10 series, reached the ACC championship game, earned the bracket’s No. 11 overall seed and had a golden opportunity to close out West Virginia in a key winner’s bracket game Saturday.
Instead, it all fell apart.
Bakich made a questionable pitching decision up 5-4 in the top of the eighth inning, pulling Reed Garris for Lucas Mahlstedt with two outs. Clemson’s star reliever allowed a game-tying run and WVU rattled off four runs in the top of the ninth to steal a win. Sunday’s Kentucky game was essentially over after three innings.
“We’re not going to let the outcome of one game today sour what were some pretty good achievements,” Bakich said. “That being said, it’s not good enough.”
Bakich, 47, isn’t going anywhere. Clemson is a stellar 133-53 (.715) in his three seasons, and he’s still widely regarded as one of baseball’s sharpest and most innovative coaches — someone who’s able to tackle NIL and the transfer portal head-on while mixing in some fun on the side. He declined to pursue SEC jobs last year to stay at Clemson and was paid well for it ($1.275 million this year).
But Bakich, who was a volunteer assistant for Leggett’s 2002 Tigers team that reached the College World Series, knows the program’s standard as well as anyone.
When your program ranks among the top 10 nationally in all-time wins, all-time NCAA Tournament appearances and all-time College World Series appearances, hosting a regional is the floor. And postseason results define seasons.
“It’s hard to get to Omaha,” Bakich said.
Apparently not hard enough for other schools in Clemson’s conference. Ten current ACC programs have made the CWS more recently than the Tigers: Florida State, NC State, UNC, Wake Forest, Miami, Louisville, Notre Dame, Stanford, Cal and Virginia.
Same for in-state foes South Carolina (2012) and Coastal Carolina (2016)
And mid-majors Stony Brook, Kent State, UC Irvine and Oral Roberts.
A promise to the fanbase
So, what’s the solution?
How does Clemson go from 15 years of hitting its ceiling to breaking through again?
Bakich pointed to two things: Better work ethic and better talent.
“You have to work your ass off every day,” he said Sunday. “Omaha is a lifestyle as much as it is a destination, and you just cannot leave anything short. You just hope that you work so hard that you get the opportunity to earn your way there.”
Revealingly, he also acknowledged Clemson needed to add more talent to its roster. Anyone watching this weekend’s regional could notice the Tigers’ depth issues and inconsistency at both pitching and hitting positions, especially when compared to some of the other top teams around the nation (especially in the SEC).
Bakich said Clemson’s staff already has its eyes on numerous high school recruits and players in the transfer portal who could, in his words, “change a game with one swing” at the plate as a hitter or “cover up a lot of things” on the mound as a pitcher.
“We’re always going to make sure that we’re not leaving anything on the table and recruiting the very best players and developing them to our max potential,” he said.
Of course, those words might fall on deaf ears a bit considering Clemson’s 15-year track record of failing to turn that talent in winning baseball at the highest level.
But for Bakich, it’s not an “if” – it’s a “when.”
“Clemson baseball will be back in Omaha,” he said Sunday. “That’s going to happen.”
This story was originally published June 2, 2025 at 8:00 AM.
