Who will fill in as the midweek starters for Clemson’s baseball team this week? And will the Tigers stick with the same rotation in yet another pivotal ACC series at Louisville this weekend?
Those are questions Clemson coach Monte Lee and his staff find themselves needing to answer after their latest alteration on the mound. A day after changing his Saturday starter for the second straight week, Lee started freshman Billy Barlow in place of Nick Clayton for the Tigers’ series finale Sunday.
With the help of six relievers, Clemson rallied to beat the Seminoles to win its second straight ACC series after dropping the first four. But the decision to start Barlow, the Tigers’ usual midweek starter, means Clemson will have to turn elsewhere for their next game Tuesday against Presbyterian at Doug Kingsmore Stadium.
Clemson has another game at home Wednesday against No. 25 Wofford, so the Tigers will need a couple of fresh arms to help them get through the midweek. Clayton, who last pitched an inning of relief Wednesday in Clemson’s win over East Tennessee State, is a candidate to start. So is Nick Hoffman, who began the season in the weekend rotation but has made his last four appearances in relief.
But they’re not the only ones. While most of their appearances have come out of the bullpen, freshman Casey Tallent and sophomore Ricky Williams have each started a game this season. Williams (0.87 earned run average) has allowed just one earned run in 10 ⅓ innings while Tallent (2.37), who got his first career start against ETSU last week, has held opposing batters to a .224 average in 19 innings.
Lee said following Sunday’s game he and his staff will talk it over before making a decision at some point today.
“We have options between Ricky Williams, Clayton, Tallent,” Lee said. “So we’ll talk it over as a staff and try to figure out how to piece 18 innings there together in the middle of the week.”
As for the weekend, Lee said he will take the same approach when deciding whether or not he’ll keep the back end of the rotation the same against Louisville, which begins the week tied with Notre Dame atop the ACC’s Atlantic Division standings.
Sophomore right-hander Mack Anglin (3.24) has been the constant for Clemson all season in the Friday night spot, but the rest of the weekend has been a bugaboo for most of the season. Clemson had not had a Saturday or Sunday starter work past the fourth inning since its ACC-opening series against Miami until Gilbert did so this past Saturday. In his first start of the season, Gilbert limited FSU to three runs on four hits in 4 1/3 innings.
On Sunday, Barlow yielded three runs in the first inning before settling in to get through the first 3 ⅔ frames on 82 pitches. Asked if Barlow has earned another weekend start against the Cardinals, Lee was non-committal.
“He’s not going to be available in the middle of the week, so it certainly makes sense to potentially start him again next weekend,” Lee said. “But obviously we’ll discuss that as a staff before we make any sort of decision on what we’re going to do there.”
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