Tigers "ahead of the game" as season opener nears

Lee likes the depth of his pitching staff.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Fri Feb 12 08:01:03 GMT-04:00 2021

Clemson’s baseball team begins the 2021 season a week from today, and head coach Monte Lee feels like his team is ahead of the game thanks to pitching depth.

Lee, in his sixth season, returns players who accounted for over 95 percent of the starts made in 2020, including every player who started a game in the batting order. Clemson also welcomes the No. 16 recruiting class in the nation according to D1Baseball.

Lee said his group has been able to get in needed work despite the pandemic and he feels like the Tigers are “ahead of the game.”

“Since we came back in January, we have been very blessed in that we started classes on January 6 in Clemson, which has given us a lot of opportunities to be able to get out on the field and to get a lot of really good baseball work in with our guys,” Lee said. “I feel like we are in great shape. The pitching staff looks outstanding. There were a lot of competitive workouts up to this point.

“We are already, in my opinion, ahead of the game. I feel like we are probably farther along right now than we have been in the past.”

The Tigers lost three of their most important pieces from the 2020 staff, but they return many young pitchers who made an immediate impact a season ago. Perhaps their most talented pitcher is third-year freshman righty Carter Raffield (Cochran, Ga.). Coming off a season-ending injury in 2019, Raffield showed flashes of dominance out of the bullpen in 7.2 innings pitched in 2020. He will compete for a spot in the weekend rotation in 2021.

Sophomore right-hander Davis Sharpe (Dacula, Ga.) has used his pitchability to be a consistent force on the diamond the past two years. In 102.2 innings pitched over 19 appearances (18 starts), he is 8-5 with a 3.33 ERA and 104 strikeouts. He is also a leading candidate to start at first base, as he is a .276 career hitter with seven homers and 28 RBIs in 51 games (47 starts).

"Our pitching probably is ahead of our offense and quite honestly I like it that way," Lee said. "I think we would all prefer to have a pitching staff that's ahead of our offense. If our offense is ahead of our pitching staff, in my experience and in the way that baseball has worked for over 100 years, if you got a lineup knocking around your pitching staff, that usually does not bode well for making a deep run in the postseason.

"I would say that our starting rotation is certainly up for grabs up to this point. Right now, Sharpe, (Keyshawn) Askew, (Caden) Grice, (Evan) Estridge, (Mat) Clark, Raffield, those guys are probably in the mix to start. (Jackson) Lindley factors in there as well. Evan Estridge is by far the most improved pitcher on our staff. We feel like he's going to have a major, major impact on this team. His velocity and stuff has increased dramatically."

As the Tigers prepare to open the season against Cincinnati, Lee admitted that dealing with COVID-19 is simply another thing that factors into their planning.

“We did have to deal with the virus in the fall. I am sure every college baseball coach, especially that is in the position we are in at Clemson, where we test our guys, every guy on our roster, every single week, we have had already had to deal with COVID,” Lee said. “We have already had to deal with the rules, the CDC guidelines, as far as the direct contact if you have a guy that test positive, he and his roommates are out.

"I think we have a pretty good grasp of what we're dealing with. The biggest thing is just, again, just trying to do everything we can as coaches to make sure our guys are doing the right things. A lot of that is just going to be their accountability off the field. These are college students. We know that they want to spend time in groups, they want to gather they want to socialize, but we simply cannot do those types of things this spring if we expect to be able to work with our full roster throughout the whole course of the spring. So we know that we're gonna have some hiccups but we're just going to have to deal with it and do the very best we can."