The magical moment many South Carolina baseball fans had eagerly anticipated for months finally happened just before 2 p.m. on Saturday at Founders Park.
Absent from Gamecock baseball for nearly two years, Wil Crowe strolled to the mound to take his warmups for his first start in a USC uniform since April 2015.
Crowe started slowly, surrendering consecutive one-out singles to two of the first three UNC Greensboro hitters he faced, but soon settled into a nice groove. He fanned four straight UNCG hitters in one stretch (final out in top of third, all three outs in top of fourth), looking like the Crowe of 2014 when he went 8-3 with a 2.75 ERA in 91.2 IP as a freshman.
“I was just trying to find my groove,” Crowe said about the first couple of innings. “I had a few pitches come out early and I wasn’t getting through my pitches. The ball was up a little bit. But once I settled in and got over the early jitters, I finally got going a little bit. After the third inning is when I really settled in and was able to get guys out.”
After issuing a leadoff walk in the top of the third, Crowe set down the final nine UNCG batters he faced, five by strikeouts.
It was like Crowe had never left.
“It was a good feeling to be back out here and wearing a Gamecock uniform,” Crowe said. “It was a little emotional. I’m glad I could help the team win a game and do my part and be part of something special. The last 22 months have been tough.”
In 5.0 innings, Crowe held UNCG scoreless on three hits, seven strikeouts and one walk. Crowe and reliever Reed Scott (4.0 IP for first save of 2017) combined for five hits allowed, 10 strikeouts and one walk while throwing 92 strikes out of 139 pitches (66.2 strike percentage).
Throwing 82 pitches, Crowe was credited with his first win as a Gamecock since March 13, 2015 when he improved to 3-1 after shackling Kentucky on one hit and one run over 7.0 innings at Founders Park.
“It was great to see Wil back out there pitching for the Gamecocks after a long rehabilitation,” Holbrook said. “He didn’t disappoint. He pitched great. He was excited, he was ready to go. He is always bouncing off the walls the day he is pitching. He had a lot of nervous energy, and rightfully so since he has put a lot into this. In the middle innings he really started locating his off-speed pitches. He settled in and looked like Wil Crowe.”
Combine the stellar pitching Crowe and Scott provided on Saturday with USC’s typically excellent defense (1 error came in ninth inning) and you have the recipe for a razor-sharp contest that took just 2:22 to complete.
“The name of the game was how we pitched,” Chad Holbrook said. “Wil and Reed were both terrific. We made some pretty good defensive plays behind them as well. When we pitch and play defense like that it’s hard to score on us.”
Four USC pitchers have yielded just two runs and 10 hits with 17 strikeouts and three walks to UNCG in the first two games of the series.
For Alex Destino and other USC position players, confidence your pitching staff is going to limit the amount of scoring opportunities by the opposition takes an enormous amount of pressure off because the Gamecock hitters sense they don’t have to score a bunch of runs every time out to give USC a chance to win.
“It’s great to have Wil back,” said Destino after he collected two hits and two RBI in Saturday’s win. “With him going on Saturdays you have to feel pretty good. Wil has been one of the best teammates I’ve ever had. We all watched him go through his rehab.
How much confidence does Destino have in the Gamecock pitching staff? When USC led 1-0 in the fourth inning, he was already believing the game was over.
“I was standing out there in left thinking, ‘Dang, we’ve won this game,’” Destino said. “It’s a unique scenario to be in for a team. I confidently thought that. Then the hitters had a good inning (3 runs in bottom of fifth on five singles). When we get a lead of a few runs it’s really going to be tough to beat us this year.”
NOTES:
-- Seven of the Gamecocks' nine starters had at least one hit in Saturday's victory. Freshman Carlos Corte started at DH and recorded the first hit and RBI Of his career.
-- Reed Scott's four-inning stint was his longest outing since he went four innings at Georgia on April 16, 2016.
-- The sellout crowd of 8,242 was the second straight of the series with UNCG and the 50th sellout in Founders Park history.
-- While UNCG came into the series with a reputation as a heavy hitting team, the Gamecocks enjoy a 22-9 in hits through the first two games. Just one of the Gamecocks’ 11 hits was an extra base hit. “We made some mistakes offensively and I don't think we swung the bat the way we are capable of swinging it,” Holbrook said.
