{"id":6589,"date":"2023-06-01T14:32:05","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T19:32:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/?p=6589"},"modified":"2023-06-01T14:32:05","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T19:32:05","slug":"the-change-in-mindset-that-helped-clemson-baseball-turn-around-its-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/the-change-in-mindset-that-helped-clemson-baseball-turn-around-its-season\/","title":{"rendered":"The change in mindset that helped Clemson baseball turn around its season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clemson<\/a> was very much an average baseball team \u2014 at best \u2014 the first half of the season. The Tigers were 17-14 (2-8) through 31 games and in last place in the ACC.<\/p>\n

It was at that point that Erik Bakich<\/strong> decided his ballclub needed a change in mindset.<\/p>\n

Bakich decided that the Tigers were going to be much more aggressive in all aspects of the game moving forward. He wasn\u2019t sure if the move would work or not, but he knew that something had to change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first 31 games we\u2019re 17-14, we\u2019re 2-8 in conference and just made a decision that if we\u2019re going to do this, we\u2019re going to do this by pulling out all the stops,\u201d Bakich said. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing that we won\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the next several weeks, Clemson turned to plays that you\u2019re more likely to see in a little league game than in college baseball.<\/p>\n

A day after dropping Game 1 of its series with Florida State to fall to 2-8 in the ACC, Clemson pulled off a hidden ball trick against the Seminoles to get an out at third. Clemson ended up winning that game 8-1 and took the series from the Seminoles the next day. The Tigers have also been incredibly aggressive on the bases throughout the second half of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the [ACC] championship game, we ran a first-and-third half steal in the first inning. Like who does that? But we do,\u201d Bakich said. \u201cWe just started playing better once we started doing hidden ball tricks and gadget plays and just having a little more fun playing baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n

The moves certainly paid off. <\/p>\n

Clemson is 26-3 since April 7 and enters the NCAA Tournament as the hottest team in college baseball. The Tigers swept their way through the ACC Tournament to capture the championship and won their 16th straight game in the process.<\/p>\n

Even with Clemson entering the NCAA Tournament, where every game will be magnified, Bakich doesn\u2019t plan on changing anything.<\/p>\n

The Tigers will be aggressive in Friday\u2019s opener against Lipscomb<\/a> and as long as they continue to play in the postseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s awesome. I love it. And we\u2019ll have to keep that mindset,\u201d Bakich said. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to add any expectations to this. We\u2019re going to keep playing like we\u2019ve got house money, because we do. Our season was over after 31 games. We were going nowhere fast. We know what the other side feels like, and so for us, it\u2019s like we\u2019ve got nothing to lose. We\u2019re going to keep that mindset and keep having fun playing ball as long as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post The change in mindset that helped Clemson baseball turn around its season<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clemson was very much an average baseball team \u2014 at best \u2014 the first half…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}