Lee knows what it will take to get out of the regionals
OXFORD, Miss.-- The Clemson baseball team has not made it out of the regional round of the NCAA Tournament since the 2010 season. And in four elimination games under head coach Monte Lee, the Tigers have been outscored 45-10.
But following the Tigers fourth straight loss in regional play, Lee was adamant that he knows what it takes to get the problem fixed.
"Well, we would have liked to have pitch better and this regional and you know, last three years or the last three years and now I'm not going to talk about the last three seasons," Lee said. "I think it's important just to move forward and talk about, you know, this year. But yeah, I mean I think there's, there's no secret we would've liked to have gotten deeper into the games with our starters in the three games. I mean that's, that's a big factor in why you give up runs.
"You know, the bottom line is if you've got to go to your bullpen early in the game in the third and then the fourth inning, if you got to turn it over early to somebody else, that makes it tough because you know, you're asking guys to stretch themselves out and throw, you know, sometimes 40 50 pitches and they may be more of a one to two inning type guy."
The problem for the pitching staff that cannot get deep into ball games that you are putting player in positions they are not accustomed to--like pitching out of the bullpen.
While that problem did not rear it's head in Game 1, as starting pitcher Davis Sharpe was brilliant in his first appearance out of the bullpen this season, the Tigers' inability to get deep into ball games ultimately cost the Tigers--meaning finding starting pitchers will be a point-of-emphasis this coming fall.
"You're asking him to do some things that sometimes they're just not accustomed to doing," Lee said. "So yeah, we needed to pitch better. We needed to get deeper into our starts and we were unable to do that. So that's certainly an area that moving into the fall is going to be a big point of emphasis for us.
"We've got to develop starters, we've gotta do a better job of developing starters and forcing guys to pitch through situations and pitch with runners on base and stretching guys out. That's going to be a big focus for us because you know, that was, that was an issue for us this year. So that's just an area we got to get better at."
For Lee and company, they return a young, but talented core group of pitchers. And with the incoming players, Lee believes that there is enough returning talent, combined with incoming talent, to have more answers than questions entering 2020.
"Some of the guys who we're bringing in, we've got, we've got a good group coming back and we've got a good group coming in," Lee said. "So we've got a good nucleus, a good mix and that that's going to be a focus for us is just try to play as much as we can and start everybody. Just try to start everybody and stretch your body out and let's see who could start so that, so that we feel a little bit like, like we have more answers going into the spring.
"That's, you know, again you've got to take every year and look at that year and say okay, what could we have done better and you apply it to the fall. That's our opportunity to apply what we learned from the previous season and so, and as a head coach got to do a better job. You know, I gotta do a better job in all areas of the program and in our assistant coaches do as well. And you know, feel like we got a good group coming in next year and we'll hit the ground running in August when they get here."