Maryland Series

The Tigers did what they needed to do in College Park this weekend by taking 2 of 3 from the Terrapins. A sweep would have been nice, but the Tigers are now back to .500 in the ACC with a 6-6 record. The starting pitching was again outstanding. D.J. Mitchell set the tone on Friday night holding the Terps scoreless through the first 8 innings, but he did make the 9th interesting. With runners at first ands second and nobody out, Nick Jowers laid a sacrifice bunt down the third base line. D.J. pounced on it, tried to bare hand it, fumbled it, then got it back under control and promptly threw it over Mike Freeman's head down the right field line. AJ Casario and Gerry Spessard both then appeared to score, with Spessard's run being the tying run, but Mitchell's throw had disappeared over by a bench along the right field wall. From where I was sitting it appeared the ball had lodged between the padding, but what really happened you could try one million times and never duplicate. The ball had actually gone up the sleeve of a warm-up jacket left by a Maryland player hanging on the bench along the right field wall. After talking things over the umpires sent Spessard back to third and Jowers was standing at second and still no one was out. On comes Casey Harmon and the freshman delivered. He got Will Greenberg to ground to third and then struck out Joe Palumbo. Matt Vaughn then came on and got Steve Braun to ground out to first with the pitcher covering and the Tigers stared defeat in the eyes only to prevail 2-1.
Saturday the Tigers jumped out to a 3-0 lead after 3 innings only to see Maryland score 5 unanswered runs for a 5-3 win. Sundays game once again came down to late inning heroics. Stan Widmann was scratched from the starting lineup because of a sore throwing shoulder, but came on in the 8th in his first ever pinch hitting appearance and delivered a sacrifice fly to right scoring Ben Paulsen from third for a 3-2 Clemson lead. The Tigers tacked on three more runs in the ninth for a 6-2 win. Ryan Hinson went seven strong innings giving up only two runs on six hits while striking out eight. Casey Harman posted a one, two, three eighth and Matt Vaughn pitched a one, two, three ninth.

Notes:

Stan Widmann's arm will be looked at today, but it is not expected to be anything serious. There is the possibility he could miss Tuesday game at Georgia.

Mike Freeman continues to impress at the plate. He hit lead off in both Saturday and Sunday's game reaching base four times and laying down a sacrifice bunt.

Addison Johnson took batting practice on Sunday for the first time in a couple of weeks. He said he felt good after the game. Look for him to take BP prior to the games on Tuesday and Wednesday with Georgia. He has a chance to play in the Miami series if things go well this week.

After the games this week against Georgia, the Tigers will play eight of nine against top ten competition. Three against Miami, three against North Carolina, and two against South Carolina. Four of the games will be at home and four will be on the road. When we get to April 16 we will know a little more about the Tigers.