Clemson vaults up D1Baseball Top 25

Clemson continued a move up the polls going into a final week of the regular season, jumping nine spots to No. 7 with D1Baseball.

by Brandon Rink - Staff Writer - Mon May 15 09:06:57 GMT-04:00 2023

Clemson’s ascent up the national rankings continued on Monday.

Erik Bakich’s Tigers (35-17, 17-10) swept a third ACC series in the last four and won a sixth consecutive conference series by grabbing three wins at Virginia Tech over the weekend.

Clemson vaulted nine spots in this week's D1Baseball Top 25 to No. 7 overall. Clemson is also in the Top 10 with Perfect Game, moving up four spots to No. 6, and the Coaches Poll, up 11 spots to No. 10.

Elsewhere, the Tigers moved up two spots to No. 16 with the Baseball America rankings. Collegiate Baseball slotted Clemson up six spots to No. 11.

Clemson has built a resume worthy of a regional host bid and come in range of challenging for a top-8 national seed hosting chance until Omaha’s College World Series.

The Tigers jumped to No. 8 in the RPI metric over the weekend, ranking third in strength of schedule and 20th in non-conference strength of schedule. Clemson owns 16 wins over RPI Quadrant 1 opponents (against 12 losses) and is 8-2 versus Q2 foes with zero Q4 losses in eight games.

In ACC-only stats, Clemson leads the ACC in batting average (.305) and ranks second in stolen bases (29), third in doubles (62) and on-base percentage (.387), fifth in total bases (432) and sixth in slugging percentage (.454).

Pitching there, Clemson is third in ERA (4.85) and saves (10) with the second-best opposing batting average (.251). The Tigers rank third in fielding percentage (.979).

Individually in ACC action, Cam Cannarella (4th; .400) and Billy Amick (7th; .375) are top-10 in batting average; Amick is top-10 in slugging percentage (7th; .693) and OPS (7th; 1.117), Cannarella paces the ACC in hits (44); Will Taylor (6th; 28), Cannarella (T-8th; 27) and Caden Grice (T-8th; 27) are top-10 in runs scored; Grice is second in RBIs (32); Amick is 8th in doubles (10); and Cannerella is 10th in stolen bases (7).

Pitching against conference foes, Nick Clayton ranks fifth (3.10) in ERA; Clayton is third (.190), Grice is fifth (.208) and Austin Gordon is 8th (.225) in opposing batting average; Grice leads the ACC in strikeouts (64); Gordon paces the league in strikeouts looking (21) and Grice is seventh (17); and Grice ranks second in wins (6).

Clemson wraps the regular season hosting USC Upstate on Tuesday (6 p.m.) and then UNC Thursday through Saturday, starting at 6 p.m. Thursday, before next week’s ACC Baseball Championship in Durham, North Carolina. Clemson is currently ahead of Virginia (16-11) and Miami (16-11) by a game for the third seed for the top division runner-up in the tournament. Wake Forest clinched the top seed in the tournament and the Atlantic Division over the weekend.

Clemson in the college baseball rankings

Perfect Game: 6 (10 prev)

D1Baseball: 7 (16 prev)

Baseball America: 16 (18 prev)

Collegiate Baseball: 11 (17 prev)

Coaches Poll: 10 (21 prev)

NCBWA: 13 (21 prev)