- Lot of talk about a flop over in Durham this past weekend. Tough loss to Virginia, to be sure, but I'm not too concerned about a 1-run loss. Studies for games in the majors have shown teams tend to win 1-run games at the rate of their win percentage, but there's a lot of variation in the numbers. This leads to a kind of "luck" for in 1-run outcomes. I imagine these studies more or less hold true for top-shelf college competition (like the ACC variety) and by my count, Clemson is now 7-5 in 1-run games: more or less where we'd expect them to be and nothing to complain about, really.
- The loss to Duke was another story. While Duke got into Dwyer and later McKinney, our balls in play weren't falling against Andrew Wolcott. That's the way Clemson is constructed this year, though. While the pitching staff is far from a bunch of slackers, the offense is the strongest unit--we're out there to put runs on the board, not necessarily prevent them from coming in.
- A lot of people will say that's not a great recipe for post-season success, and the road to Omaha is paved in solid pitching performance. I buy that to an extent, but the good news is Clemson has done just as well, if not better, on weekend games against the best the opposition throws at us. We're not just punishing poor pitchers, but good pitchers as well.
- Regionals should be up in a couple of hours. Here's to praying that Stephen Strasburg, his 103mph fastball, and San Diego State don't land in our regional, and pitying the host team that gets SDSU. They might as well not show up.
Update: haha Virginia!
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