Nothing lasts forever, not even Clemson baseball’s string of NCAA Tournament appearances.

Earlier this week, the Tigers learned they were not among the 64 invitees — bringing a disappointing and frustrating season to an early conclusion. The Tigers had enjoyed a 21- year appearance streak in the tournament, one that began in 1987 under former coach Bill Wilhelm and continued with current coach Jack Leggett.

In previous seasons, slow starts by the Tigers were offset by long winning streaks that catapulted the team into the tourney. Clemson was the site for many a regional or super regional round and an appearance in the College World Series was the expectation, rather than the hope, of many fans.

But this year was different seemingly from the get go. After a promising 5-0 start, the Tigers began losing games they shouldn’t have — including four out of six to ACC underlings Wake Forest and Boston College — to set the stage for an 11-18-1 conference record. Even during the middle of the season, when the Tigers sported an 18-8 overall record, Clemson proceeded to lose 11 in a row and 12 of 13 with one tie.

Although I have stated and will continue to state that the Tigers baseball program deserves a mulligan over their disastrous season, there are some areas that proved to be key factors in the team’s implosion that I feel must be corrected to avoid a similar result in 2009.

The major area of improvement is offensively. While Leggett has always been a fan of “Small Ball,” the truth is that his best teams, including the 1996 and 2002 versions, relied more on the long ball. Although designated hitter Kyle Parker and Ben Paulsen were power threats, there just weren’t enough power bats in the lineup to scare opponents nor bring Clemson back from games in which they seemingly fell behind all too frequently.

But if you’re going to adopt a “Small Ball” mentality, there should at least be some type of ability to manufacture runs — something the Tigers were consistently unable to do. The team had no speed, made too many baserunning errors and saw the bottom part of its batting order struggle to drive in runs. Defensively, the team made crucial errors that gave opposing teams extra outs and, more often than not, the Tigers paid dearly for those mistakes.

Personally, I have always been an advocate of former Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver and current USC baseball coach Ray Tanner’s philosophy of pitching, defense and three-run homers. Even though the Tanner-led Gamecocks struggled in the latter part of the season, their ability to combine pitching and offense is why they are still playing and the Tigers are not.

While pitching wasn’t the primary culprit to Clemson’s demise, middle relief was. Too often, the Tigers would score in their half of the inning, only to see their pitchers go back out and cough up a couple of runs, or more. The pitching staff also allowed opposing teams, namely North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida State, to achieve double-digit hits on a seemingly regular basis — causing the Tiger arms to suffer early exits and expose an already beleaguered bullpen.

There is one key element of improvement I know the Tigers will achieve in 2009 — the return of Addison Johnson. The speedy outfielder missed the entire season with injuries and his absence in the Clemson lineup was definitely felt, both offensively and defensively. Just having him back next year will be a tremendous shot in the arm to a team that could certainly use one.

Although Leggett was miffed at the selection committee for ignoring his team, the simple truth of the matter is that the Tigers didn’t deserve to be in this year’s field. Certainly, one can make the case that Clemson played an extremely tough schedule — as evidenced by its No. 24 RPI ranking — coupled with the fact that Oklahoma was invited despite an equally pitiful conference record. But a closer look shows even that argument is flawed.

First, the NCAA Basketball Tournament Selection Committee often excludes highly ranked RPI teams, adding that other criteria — such as how strong a team finishes — is also considered in the decision-making process and the Baseball Selection Committee is no different. The fact that Oklahoma made it to the Big 12 championship game while Clemson lost 2 of 3 ACC Tournament games, including a 10-0 whitewashing to N.C. State, hurt the Tigers’ cause.

If Leggett is miffed, perhaps he should be miffed at his team’s inability to score runs, the inability of middle relief to shut down opponents, the inability of his team to avoid fielding and base running errors, the inability of his team to hit for power or at least bunt, hit and run or steal bases to move runners over, their inability to win conference games and their inability to avoid a long losing streak.

I realize there is frustration all the way from the head coach to the players, and the team definitely deserves a mulligan for this season. But, at the same time, there are things they must improve upon if they hope to avoid even more frustration next year. Clemson fans only have so much patience and, even as supportive as they’ve been with baseball through the years, that reservoir only runs so deep.

Unlike the other Clemson athletic programs, the Tiger baseball program has only known success. Now, we’re about to see how they handle failure. How they do that will tell fans a lot about this program in 2009 and beyond.