Tigers move up in D1Baseball Top 25

Cam Cannarella and the Tigers rank fourth in the ACC in home runs.

by TigerNet Staff - Mon May 06 10:14:52 GMT-04:00 2024

Another ACC series-winning weekend meant a move up in the polls for Erik Bakich's Tigers.

D1Baseball's Top 25 moved Clemson (36-10, 17-7) up two spots to No. 2 overall. That puts Tigers in a full Top 5 of Tennessee, Clemson, Texas A&M, Kentucky and Arkansas.

The next-best team from the ACC is Florida State (8), followed by Duke (9), Virginia (10), UNC (11), and this weekend's road trip to Wake Forest (12). South Carolina is up to No. 13, and NC State is No. 23.

Baseball America kept the Tigers at No. 4.

"Clemson won a tricky series against Georgia Tech to move into a tie atop the ACC standings with North Carolina. The Tigers’ offense roared all weekend, scoring 32 runs over the three games. Blake Wright went 6-for-11 with three home runs, while Jacob Hinderleider and Nolan Nawrocki both added six hits as well. Clemson has a tough week on the road ahead, with stops at Charlotte and Wake Forest," the outlet said, which has a Top 5 of Tennessee, Texas A&M, Arkansas, Clemson and Florida State.

The Tigers head to the site of this year's ACC Baseball Championship next with a 6 p.m. Tuesday date at Charlotte's Truist Field (ESPN+). They start the weekend series at Wake Forest on Friday at 6 p.m. as well (ACCNX).

Clemson leads the Atlantic Division (17-7) ahead of FSU (14-9), with two series each left for the programs. NC State (13-10), Louisville (13-11) and Wake Forest (12-12) are next. Clemson owns a tiebreaker head-to-head on all but NC State in teams played in that group so far.

The Tigers are also even with UNC for the best record in the league and the potential No. 1 seed in the ACC Baseball Championship. The teams do not have a head-to-head meeting this year, so UNC currently has the edge due to sweeping a common opponent in Georgia Tech (highest-ranked common opponent after NC State for both, which they both went 1-2 versus; Clemson went 2-1 over the weekend against the Yellow Jackets). A higher-finishing Duke could replace that head-to-head tiebreaker when the Tar Heels play them to close the regular season (Clemson went 2-1 vs. Duke as well).

In the ACC stats, UNC (4.02) topped Clemson (4.18) in team ERA with its weekly performance. The Tigers rank fourth in home runs (86), but ninth in runs scored.

Individually, Blake Wright (65) is second only to Florida State's James Tibbs III in RBIs (70), and Wright is also fourth in home runs (19), sixth in runs scored (55) and seventh in hits (66). Jimmy Obertop is seventh in walks (39).

Pitching, Aidan Knaak is second in ERA (2.57), third in opposing batting average (.196), fourth in strikeouts (82) and 10th in walks allowed (20). Austin Gordon is second in saves (7).