It’s one of the most memorable moments in Virginia baseball postseason history: Ernie Clement lacing a two-run walk-off single to left field to beat Maryland and send the eventual national champions to the 2015 College World Series.
But six years later, when Kevin McMullan reflects on that highlight he thinks about all of the unseen work Clement put in throughout his first college season to be ready for that moment in the spotlight.
“I remember walking out of practice every day, he’s in that batting cage hitting breaking balls after practice every day until his hands were sore and you’ll recall, he hits the walk-off on a breaking ball against Maryland,” said McMullan, UVa’s associate head coach. “He was prepared for that moment because he worked at it every day. That’s who Ernie Clement is. He’s over prepared so when the time comes, he’s prepared and he’s productive.”
That work ethic carried Clement through a college career in which he earned All-ACC at two different positions and MVP honors in the Cape Cod League. It prompted the Cleveland Indians to select the infielder in the fourth round of the 2017 MLB Draft. And in the last few weeks, it has twice led Cleveland to summon Clement to the big leagues.
He spent part of his Memorial Day weekend with the Major League club as the extra man on the roster for a May 30th doubleheader against the Blue Jays but didn’t appear in either game. He got the call again last weekend and made his MLB debut on Sunday. Then last night, he picked up his first hit and scored a run in his first big league start.
“It’s been a lifelong dream of mine,” Clement said earlier this month, following his brief initial stay in the majors. “I immediately texted Brian O’Connor and Coach Mac and I was like, ‘Guys, I’m going to the show. I just wanted to thank you guys for everything you did for me.’ Because I would absolutely not be in this position without them.”
Clement’s arrival in Cleveland caps one of the under-the-radar recruiting and development success stories for that Virginia coaching staff. Listed at 6-foot and 170 pounds, Clement was unranked by Perfect Game coming out of high school in New York in 2014. The infielder chuckled when asked about how heavily he was recruited.
“Not heavily at all,” Clement recalled. “I was actually kind of planning on going to community college around Rochester to hopefully get some more college looks. I had had some offers. I had had some smaller schools offer me. But I was pretty much looking for that big school and it never really came.”
Clement first visited UVa for a camp following his sophomore year. A coaching friend from upstate New York had recommended that McMullan keep an eye out for the young prospect, but as the UVa assistant recalled “he was just a little bit undersized and not strong” at that point.
“And then the following summer he was at a tournament here earlier in the summer,” McMullan added, “and he was a much different-looking guy.”
Clement played two games in that tournament, hitting a few home runs and making some standout plays defensively. McMullan saw a kid who “played like his hair was on fire.”
The way Clement remembers it, Virginia had a spot open in its 2014 recruiting class after another player backed out and committed elsewhere. Before he left Charlottesville a second time, he got that big-school scholarship offer he’d been hoping for.
“It all kind of worked out,” he said. “It was kind of a ‘right place, right time’ kind of thing.”
By the time Clement and the Cavaliers traveled to East Carolina to open his first college season, he had earned a spot hitting leadoff and playing center field for the previous year’s national runner-up. That freshman year ended four months later in Omaha, with Clement playing second base and the Wahoos winning the College World Series.
Along the way, he hit .245 in 62 games, including 61 starts. He made the All-CWS Team that June after hitting .292 and delivering three go-ahead hits in UVa’s 12 postseason games, including his iconic walk-off against the Terrapins that sent the Hoos to Omaha.
Clement finished his three-year UVa career with a .306 batting average in 179 games. He was named second-team All-ACC at second base as a sophomore in 2016, then made the third team at shortstop the following season. The summer after his sophomore year, Clement hit .353 with a .400 on-base percentage for the Harwich Mariners to earn Cape Cod League MVP honors. After his junior season, he was drafted by Cleveland and turned pro.
“He was on a mission every day to be the best version of himself,” McMullan said, “and he was okay with wherever it landed.”
By the end of his first full pro season in 2018, Clement had worked his way to Double-A. He finished the 2019 season by getting six hits in three games at Columbus, the Indians’ Triple-A affiliate. With no minor league season last year because of COVID-19, Clement spent the summer among the players at Cleveland’s alternate site in Columbus.
At every step, he put in the work.
“Every day that I get up in the morning it’s my goal to become a better baseball player,” he said. “I really have worked my tail off. I just have so much fun with it. I don’t take a single day for granted.”
Clement was hitting .289 in 20 games at Columbus when he was recalled by the Indians last weekend. He played second base and hit seventh against the Orioles in his first start Tuesday night, and in the bottom of the fourth, Clement capped a seven-pitch at-bat with a single up the middle. Appropriately, just like against Maryland six years earlier, that first big-league hit came on a breaking ball.
“I’m not surprised because of who he is as a man, and how important the game is and how much fun it is for him,” McMullan said about Clement reaching the big leagues. “He just keeps proving people wrong.”
From a scrawny, unranked recruit to a Major League infielder, Clement has carved a career out of proving people wrong.
“That’s my favorite,” he admitted. “You have all these incredible prospects who are all super talented, and they’re all going to be great players in Major League Baseball someday. It’s so fun just kind of flying under the radar. I just get to go out and have fun every day and I get paid to play baseball. It’s the greatest job in the world.”
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