Lee To Keep Close Eye On Clemson's Sharpe

Clemson faces a "heck of a challenge" against Liberty's Game 2 starter. The Tigers will counter with Davis Sharpe on the mound, but he will be on a pitch count and closely monitored by the coaching staff because of his two-way ability.

Typically, the best pitcher on staff is the Friday starter, or ace, in college baseball.

For Clemson head coach Monte Lee, the Saturday starter is “just as important and maybe sometimes more important."

That’s why he’s turning to Davis Sharpe to see if the Tigers can go ahead and win the best-of-three series against Liberty today at 1 p.m.

Clemson won Friday’s game 5-3 behind four “wildly effective” innings from starting pitcher Sam Weatherly. Now, Sharpe, a two-way player who didn’t hit Friday, will get his chance to build off an impressive freshman season.

“He’s a big-game pitcher,” Lee said. “He’s a guy who’s won a lot of games and pitched in some big situations. We feel like he’s the right guy to handle Game 2 for us.”

He’s going to need to be for the Tigers against Liberty RHP Noah Skirrow, who posted a 3.76 ERA and struck out 98 batters in 15 starts for the Flames. Lee said Skirrow throws in the 90-94 mph range with a power slider.

“We feel pretty good when Sharpe is on the mound,” Lee said. “It’s going to be a heck of a challenge (today), but hopefully we can go out and put together another good game plan and see what happens.”

How long Sharpe duels Skirrow remains to be seen. The Clemson sophomore went 7-4 last year with a 3.20 ERA in 14 starts (15 appearances). But he didn’t pitch in the fall and only started ramping his arm back up this past Christmas because of the need to use him as a hitter as well.

“We’re going to have to monitor his pitch count,” Lee said. “We’re also going to have to watch his velocity once his pitch count gets up into that 60, 70, 80-pitch range. What does the velocity and stuff look like? Is he fatiguing? If he starts to show signs of fatigue, we’ve got to get somebody else in there otherwise he could be up and down in terms of his health and overall strength throughout the year because he has to do so much on both sides of the ball.”

He could piggyback with another pitcher with starting experience, like Mat Clark or Keyshawn Askew, Lee said. Sharpe has been a two-way player his entire baseball life, so he’s already put a lot of innings on his arm.

Lee said Sharpe will be built up over the course of the next three or four starts, when they hope to have him on a more normal pitch count.

“We just have to be cautious with Davis,” Lee said.