Quiet Jimmy Obertop lets his bat do the talking

Jimmy Obertop homered five times over the Pitt series (file photo).

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Sun Apr 21 07:00:03 GMT-04:00 2024

CLEMSON – Don’t expect Jimmy Obertop to do a lot of talking about his homers or his game. He lets his bat do all the talking.

Obertop is a graduate senior transfer catcher/first baseman who played four years at Michigan. As a member of the Michigan team from 2020-23, Obertop hit .266 with 84 runs, 22 doubles, 29 homers, 97 RBIs, a .493 slugging percentage, a .370 on-base percentage and two steals in 134 games (130 starts) in his career.

Obertop homered three times in Saturday’s series finale against Pitt, a 9-2 victory that gave the Tigers a series win. Obertop entered the series with nine homers on the season but homered twice in Friday’s series opener as well to give him 14 for the year.

Obertop downplayed his accomplishments during postgame interviews.

“Yeah, they're giving us a great scouting report, what the guys have, so just trying to put the ball in play and get on base,” Obertop said.

Obertop became the 18th Tiger in history and third this season (Will Taylor, Blake Wright) to hit three long balls in a game, and he was asked what that stats shows about the power up and down the lineup.

“This offense is a lot of fun to be a part of and we got a lot more coming,” he said. “It's been a lot of fun. These guys are awesome and just trying to do one thing at a time, playing one pitch at a time, trying to get on base and help the whole team and the offense together.”

He was asked about the adjustment to playing in the ACC and said that one of the reasons he made the move was because of head coach Erik Bakich, who recruited him to Michigan. Everything else is gravy.

“I love EB and so that was an easy adjustment, but playing with these guys is awesome and no real adjustment because the whole team's bought into what we're doing here,” Obertop said. “But no culture shock or anything in the staff.”

Clemson is 32-7 overall and 13-5 in ACC play. The Tigers have 15 games remaining—including 12 in league play—and nine of those 15 games are on the road. That starts this week with a road trip to Athens to take on a Top 25 Georgia team (7 p.m./ESPNU) and then a weekend trip to Louisville to take on a Cardinals team fighting to stay around .500 in league play.