What we learned from Clemson baseball winning ACC series vs. Louisville

After losing an extra-inning thriller to No. 17 Georgia on Tuesday, Clemson baseball defeated Louisville 2-1 in a three-game weekend series at Jim Patterson Stadium.

The No. 4 Tigers (34-9, 15-6 ACC) are atop the ACC’s Atlantic Division and earned their first road series win at Louisville (25-18, 10-11) since March 2018.

Clemson won the opener 12-11 thanks to an impressive comeback, but the Cardinals evened the series with a 7-6 victory Saturday. The Tigers took the series Sunday, earning a 17-7 run-rule victory through seven innings. They outscored Louisville 12-1 in the first three innings, and Jimmy Obertop’s two-run homer in the seventh sealed the game.

Here are three takeaways from the series:

No deficit is too big for Clemson baseball to overcome

The Tigers allowed 10 runs in the fourth inning in the series opener to trail the Cardinals 11-4 entering the fifth. Yet, like they have done all year, they battled back, scoring eight unanswered runs to take the lead in the ninth.

“We had a million mistakes, but to our team’s credit and to their credit all year, they are a tough resilient bunch, and they firmly believe they were never out of the fight,” coach Erik Bakich said Friday.

Clemson has 19 comeback wins this season. The largest deficit it has overcome was nine runs against Florida State. As the Tigers enter the final month of the regular season, they hope to continue their strong play.

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Cam Cannarella’s movement in the lineup leads to strong results

Cam Cannarella has been Clemson’s leadoff hitter for most of the season but moved to fifth in the order against Georgia on Tuesday. He went 2-for-6 with a walk and a home run in the midweek ranked matchup.

The 2023 ACC freshman of the year batted fifth in the first two games of the weekend series and fourth in the finale and had himself a spectacular series. He went 7-for-14 with one home run, two doubles and five RBIs. Cannarella has four straight multi-hit games and may continue to hit lower in the lineup to ignite the Tigers’ offense.

LHP Tristan Smith continues to build up

Left-hander Tristan Smith started in his second game Friday since returning from an ankle injury against Pittsburgh on April 19. He allowed two hits, four walks and a wild pitch and struck out three across three innings on 72 pitches in Clemson’s win Friday.

When Smith returned last week, Bakich said the sophomore’s workload will increase gradually. In his past two starts, he has a 6.35 ERA and allowed six hits with seven strikeouts, six walks across 5 2/3 innings. Prior to the injury, he had a 2.55 ERA and gave up 15 hits with 36 strikeouts, 11 walks in 24 2/3 innings in five starts.

Clemson hopes to continue to avoid the injury bug, too, after Andrew Ciufo tore his ACL and Will Taylor injured his left wrist this season.

Derrian Carter covers Clemson athletics for The Greenville News and the USA TODAY Network. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @DerrianCarter00