COLUMBIA — Mark Kingston listens to the statistics, and they told him that it was a gamble. Sacrificing some of the pieces of South Carolina’s best defensive lineup for more offense, especially against a fourth-ranked, SEC first-place Kentucky team that makes life miserable for opponents with bunts, steals and knocking the ball into the carpet, was the equivalent of doubling down on 18.
But it’s one of his favorite phrases (“That’s baseball”). Gambles are in the program’s DNA (starting little known reliever Michael Roth in a College World Series elimination game? Against Clemson, no less?)
So he rolled the dice, stayed with it as his first try crapped out in a Saturday loss, and won the series on Sunday.
“To respond like that after a tough loss last night, a loss that could have gone either way, I thought this was one of our best weekends of the year,” Kingston said. “Clearly.”
The Gamecocks skunked the Wildcats 10-0 in the seven-inning run-ruled finale on Sunday at Founders Park, riding the offense that Kingston believed he would get with the new defensive look and the best performance of the season from junior pitcher Dylan Eskew to take a much-needed 2-1 series win.
Still projected to host an NCAA Regional but about to go on the road for two of their final three series, the Gamecocks firmed their footing with a dominant showing one day after they squandered a chance to win the series in a 15-13 loss on Saturday.
“That’s a top 5 team, and that seems like that’s all we played the past six weeks. We’ve been talking about getting over that last hump,” Kingston said. “We really know now. Not only can we go toe-to-toe with anybody, we can beat anybody. I hope that we are now kind of hitting our groove.”
At 29-14 overall and 11-10 SEC, the No. 24 Gamecocks need five more conference wins to be confident about hosting a regional. Sixteen league wins was enough to host last season, and their RPI (12 and sure to rise after a series win over the No. 4 Wildcats) is comparable to last year’s (8).
The postseason is on the horizon and USC looks rock-solid for it, but USC also just needed to play well. The season has been maddeningly inconsistent, the pitching almost always strong but the offense almost always unable to produce with runners on base.
Then there were games like Saturday’s, where USC exploded for six runs in the first inning, only to see staff ace Eli Jones and former starter Matthew Becker implode as Kentucky took a 15-11 lead into the ninth.
USC cut it to 15-13 and had the bases loaded with one out but couldn’t get it done. That, perhaps, was karma for hitting three solo home runs on Friday while trailing 4-1 in the ninth, then winning 6-5 in the 10th after Blake Jackson smacked his second dinger in two innings, that one a walk-off shot.
“I think we’re really picking each other up. We’re playing as one,” said Kennedy Jones, who drove in four on Sunday. “We lost a few close games this season. We’ve always wanted to pull it off, and we finally did it.”
Thirteen runs spoke to Kingston and he kept the same defensive lineup for Sunday’s game, hoping the bats would continue to boom in support of Eskew. They did, and Eskew shoved with his longest outing of the season, scattering five hits in 6⅓ shutout innings.
“For me, just landing my sinker, trusting it, that’s where everything starts. If I got that thing going, usually, it’s going to be a good day,” Eskew said. “First batter of the day started 3-0. That wasn’t ideal. But then I started landing it, trusting it.”
And the Gamecocks could afford to laugh, too. Not just about the win, but about another one of those moments that could have come back to haunt.
Gavin Casas and Austin Brinling reached base in the third of a scoreless game, which brought up slugger Ethan Petry. Petry, as he is prone to do, cranked a majestic home run into the visitor’s bullpen and began circling the bases.
But as he rounded first with a war whoop, he looked back and saw Brinling, his teammate, who had held up to see if the ball would get caught. In horror, Petry stopped in his tracks, turned around and saw umpire Jeff Head holding up his fist.
He was out for passing a teammate on the base path. Instead of a three-run homer, he was credited with a two-run single that left the park. The way things have gone this year, many furtively looked around thinking that if this one went haywire, that was going to be the play that started it.
But Eskew and outstanding infield defense put it in the “Remember that play? Ha!” pile. The Gamecocks turned two double plays, could have had a third and the only error was Cole Messina throwing wildly to first on a swinging bunt.
“When you know that you’re going to be on SEC Network for a coaches’ interview, you hope that nothing crazy happens the inning before,” said Kingston, when he did his interview after the third. “What you saw was a very excited Ethan Petry. He was excited to see the ball leave the park but he forgot to look at the guy in front of him. That’s probably never happened to him before, and it will never happen to him again.”
It was a mistake that only left a bit of yolk dripping from Petry’s chin as the Gamecocks hit .455 with runners in scoring position and .462 with runners on.
“Every team has the nine they think is their best defense, every team has the nine they think is their best offense. Sometimes you have to make a sacrifice,” Kingston said. “We just felt like we needed to jump-start the offense a little bit, put our best nine hitters in there. It just felt like the right time to give that a shot and it worked really well this weekend.”
The Gamecocks host East Tennessee State on Wednesday and are at Missouri for a three-game series next weekend. The Tigers have the worst record in the SEC East and the second-worst record in the entire league.
