Home, sweet Doug

Don't mean to jinx anything, but my calendar for next week now bears the following:

"NCAA Regionals--Clemson."

I wouldn't bet the farm on it, but the Tigers' chances of returning home for postseason baseball certainly look good.

This team boosted its hosting certification credentials the last weekend of April by taking two of three from Georgia Tech at home. Then came the attention-grabbing series win at Florida State over the weekend, including Saturday's victory on the Seminoles' senior day.

The Tigers (39-17) probably need to win a game at the ACC Tournament -- they play Georgia Tech, Florida State and N.C. State -- to feel totally secure about their chances, but it's hard to dispute their case at this point.

They have won 25 of their last 30 games. They rank No. 9 according to the RPI. They are 12-12 in games against Top-50 RPI teams, and five of those wins came against teams in the top seven of the RPI (2 vs. Georgia Tech, 2 vs. Florida State, 1 vs. South Carolina).

Six of the losses came to teams that are 1-2 in the RPI (North Carolina, Virginia).

And when you look at the recent struggles of some other teams the Tigers could be contending with for a hosting spot, you like the Tigers' chances even more:

-- Southern Miss (38-15, 15 RPI) enters its conference tourney leaking water, having lost four of its last five. Included are two home losses to Rice by a combined score of 20-2.

-- Stetson (40-16, 19 RPI) has lost four of its last five, including two of three at home to Belmont over the weekend. Another bad loss in the last 10 came to Lipscomb (217 RPI) by a score of 9-3. The Hatters' resume is also smudged by two losses to Bethune-Cookman (134 RPI), one to Campbell (256), one to Siena (194), and one to South Carolina Upstate (215).

-- Arkansas (36-18, 13 RPI) sports some nice credentials, including a May series victory over No. 3 Florida, a sweep of No. 20 LSU, a victory at No. 6 South Carolina and a series victory over No. 41 Ole Miss over the weekend. But the Hogs are 7-5 against teams ranked 101 to 200 in the RPI, and Clemson is 16-2 in the same statistic.

Here's how Aaron Fitt of Baseball America saw things heading into the weekend:

REGIONAL HOSTS

SECURE TEAMS: The eight national seeds listed above, Texas, Arizona State

ON THE BUBBLE (IN): North Carolina, Southern Mississippi, Cal State Fullerton, Oklahoma, Texas Christian, Arkansas

ON THE BUBBLE (OUT): Rice, Clemson, Stetson, Fresno State, Miami

Miami, by the way, has lost five of its last eight. The Hurricanes (33-20) are 16th in the RPI.

A few more baseball thoughts:

-- Remember in recent years when Clemson suffered a cluster of mid-week losses that ended up being costly come NCAA selection time? Well the Tigers took care of that problem this year, as illustrated by the aforementioned 16-2 record. Their only two "bad" losses were to Presbyterian and Eastern Michigan, and now we're seeing how important it is to avoid a high number of slip-ups against teams you should beat.

-- As important as pitching has been to the Tigers' late-season blossoming, you can't ignore an offense that has delivered in a number of clutch situations.

The Tigers are hitting .320 this season -- 14 percentage points higher than last season with the old bats. They smashed 93 homers last season in 70 games, compared to just 39 this season through 56, but they're averaging 10.9 hits per game -- exactly the same clip they accumulated last year.

Run production is down to 7.1 per game from 8.5 last season. But given the new bat specs and the loss of three productive bats (Kyle Parker, Mike Freeman, Wilson Boyd), it's hard to complain.

-- Kudos for Jack Leggett for keeping his cool when this team was 14-12 and doing a lot of soul-searching after a sweep at North Carolina.

Leggett knew his team wasn't far away from turning things around, knew things could change once a number of guys got healthy, knew the schedule was turning in the Tigers' favor.

He could've freaked out, but he didn't. He outlined the "30-game season" mentality he wanted his team to follow and said he wasn't going to brood about the past. As trite as it might've sounded at the time, the premise and the forward thinking it promoted was easier said than done.

Carrying it out was an important piece to the puzzle this team is figuring out at a most opportune time.

LW