Clemson Baseball Falls Hard as Georgia Tech Blasts Tigers in ACC Action

One night after both the Clemson Tigers and Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets engaged in a slugfest, just one of them brought their bats to the park on Saturday.

The Yellow Jackets were an offensive juggernaut in Game 2 of the ACC series between the two teams, as Georgia Tech scored 10 runs in the fourth inning en route to an 18-2 win over the Tigers.

The game became the first of two on Saturday, as Game 3 was moved to Saturday and made part of a doubleheader to get ahead of bad weather expected in Atlanta on Sunday.

Clemson won the first game, 9-7, on Friday night with both teams finishing with 11 hits. Sufficed to say, the Yellow Jackets owned every offensive category this time around.

Georgia Tech walloped the Tigers with 19 hits, six of which left the yard for home runs.

Kyle Lodise was the only Yellow Jacket with two home runs, as he finished 4-for-5 with six RBI and three runs. Connor Shouse, Alex Hernandez, John Giesler and Parker Brosius each had one home run.

Between the six hitters they drove in 14 of the Yellow Jackets’ 18 runs.

Clemson scored its only runs in the fifth and sixth innings. In the fifth, Andrew Ciufo singled to left field to score Andrew Paino in a run that was scored unearned due to a previous error.

In the sixth, Tryston McCladdie hit a home run to center field, a solo shot. He was the only Clemson hitter with two hits in the game. Paino was the other Tigers player with a hit.

Yellow Jackets right-hander Brady Jones (3-0) didn’t need that much run support as it turned out. He threw five innings, giving up three hits and one run. He walked six and struck out four.

He gave way to right-hander Jake Lankie and Connor Chicoli, each of whom threw an inning of relief. Lankie gave up the other Clemson run.

Clemson left-hander Ethan Darden (3-2) started but was unable to get out of the fourth inning as he took the loss. He threw 3.2 innings, giving up 10 hits, nine runs and two walks. He struck out four. This is the second straight week Darden has started a Saturday loss for the Tigers.

Next week the Tigers are on the road. On Tuesday they’ll face Georgia Southern in a mid-week, non-conference game at North Augusta, Ga. After that, the Tigers will travel to Berkeley, Calif., to face new ACC member California for a three-game series that starts on Friday.