Baseball thoughts

Not a lot of happy campers on Clemson's baseball team yesterday after Miami's 4-2 win.

Initially it was a bit of a surprise to see Jack Leggett so ticked off, among others. Because if you'd told this bunch heading into the weekend that they'd take two of three from a Top 10 team, they'd have undoubtedly taken it.

But for all that went right this weekend for this struggling team that badly needed confidence and momentum, the sour note at the end was a reflection of the same old song in what has been a disappointing season thus far.

It'd be one thing had Miami entered the third game and wiped the Tigers off the field with a determined, ticked-off effort. But that wasn't the case. Clemson had ample reason to feel like it should've won this game and walked away with a sweep. It let Miami off the hook by somehow, some way scoring just one run in the sixth inning despite four hits and two walks.

This team still has head-scratching moments, still too many brain malfunctions. Whether it's errors in the field, base-running gaffes or air-headedness at the plate, there's just too much stuff going on to make you think this is a good team. There's a reason this team is 14-13 and 5-7 in the ACC.

A few thoughts:

-- Look at the stat sheet and Spencer Kieboom's .202 batting average jumps off the page. He hit .282 last year with a .365 on-base percentage. This year's on-base percentage is .296. He should be better. It seems like he's pressing, and he made a key mistake yesterday in the sixth when he failed to swing on a called hit-and-run, leading to one of the two pickoffs.

-- The Tigers need more out of Jon McGibbon, too. He's hitting just .203. He hit .339 last year in a reserve role.

-- Dominic Attanasio is hitting a woeful .167, and yesterday he flew out in the sixth with the bases loaded and a 3-1 count. Miami's relief pitcher was struggling to find a condensed strike zone, and Attanasio should've made the guy throw a strike.

“We just need more guys helping us out, more efficiency from top to bottom," Jack Leggett said yesterday.

-- The Tigers need to get reliever Matt Campbell back ASAP. He left Game 2 with some arm soreness, and initially I was told it wasn't a big deal and he wouldn't miss much time. But yesterday Leggett indicated he could be out a while.

-- Good pitching performances from Dominic Leone and Kevin Pohle. Leone was making you wonder if he needed to be cast to a midweek role, but he responded by going a season-high seven innings Saturday and giving up just one run. Pohle allowed one earned run in six innings yesterday. Kevin Brady, though, lasted just three-and-a-third Friday. And he didn't make it out of the third inning a week earlier at Virginia. As Leggett pointed out, the Tigers need Brady to be better if they're going to maximize their potential.

-- The ACC is really good this year, and part of what makes it good is some second-tier teams are better than usual. This weekend's trip to Duke won't be easy. The Blue Devils took Sunday's game at Georgia Tech and narrowly lost 1-0 on Friday night in Atlanta. They also took one against Miami earlier this season and earned a sweep at Virginia Tech.

-- In its 14 wins, Clemson is hitting .314 with a .405 on-base percentage. But in its 13 losses, it is hitting just .214 with a .306 on-base percentage. The Tigers are 10-1 when scoring six runs or more and 4-12 when scoring five runs or less in 2012. Two of those four wins came in the Miami series.

LW