Bottom of lineup a 'tremendous luxury' for South Carolina in 20-3 win
All throughout 2023, Mark Kingston has talked about the need for his lineup to grind out at-bats. Not just at the top, but for all nine guys.
Even through a season that has now featured nine double-digit offensive outbursts in the first 15 games, no one game has illustrated that identity more than Friday.
The bottom two hitters in South Carolina’s lineup combined for nine RBIs as the Gamecocks opened up their last series of non-conference play with a 20-3 win over Bethune-Cookman at Founders Park.
"It's a tremendous luxury," Kingston said about the bottom of his lineup. Dylan Brewer has given us a huge lift down there at the bottom. Really happy for him, happy with him and to have [Will] McGillis and Brewer down there doing what they're doing, that just makes our lineup that much longer and very dangerous."
Eight of those nine RBIs from McGillis and Brewer came on two big blows, grand slams hit within the space of three innings. In the bottom of the third inning, Brewer hit his second home run in as many games to officially open up what was a close game. He popped his grand slam out onto the berm in right field to turn a 3-2 game into a 7-2 game, starting out another crooked number of an inning. By the time the dust settled on the third inning South Carolina (14-1) had scored nine times on five hits, also drawing three walks and cashing in an error for two unearned runs in the middle of it all.
It was exactly the type of inning fans have become accustomed to seeing in Columbia, a bat around that knocked the life out of an opponent. Cole Messina had another of the crushing blows in the inning when he hit a three-run home run into the home bullpen, his second home run of the game.
"We just stick to our approach and if it happens, it happens," Messina said. "And it's happening, so we're excited."
It also was not the last big inning.
The Gamecocks batted around again in the bottom of the sixth inning, and once again getting a surge from the bottom of the lineup. This time it was the eight-hole hitter McGillis who officially moved the score into run-rule territory with a grand slam of his own. The teams agreed to use the 10-run rule, in play for non-conference teams if the teams agree to it pre-game and one team is leading by 10 runs after seven innings.
In a 12-3 game in the bottom of the sixth, McGillis took matters into his own hands with a towering grand slam out to right. It was his seventh home run of the season and South Carolina’s 43rd as a team, and also made him the eighth different Gamecock to cross into double-digits in total RBIs this season.
South Carolina’s ace Will Sanders was trying to bounce back from a tough outing last Friday night at Clemson in which he gave up five runs in six innings. He did have some early wobbles — in particular struggling to put away hitters with two strikes in the third inning — but he managed to push through six innings with just three runs and five hits allowed. The brief struggle came in the third inning, when Bethune-Cookman (8-6) scored twice on a stretch of three hits out of four batters plus a two-strike wild pitch that plated a run.
But with the help of a perfectly executed relay to cut down a run at home plate — Carson Hornung to Braylen Wimmer to Messina to prevent the Wildcats from going up 3-1 on a double — Sanders locked in. He retired nine straight batters after that, striking out eight in the game with only one walk and setting himself up nicely for SEC play next week.
"It's hard to saya a turning point, but I think that was a turning point," Kingston said about the relay. "Will was teetering a little bit right there, so for defense to pick him up like they did, they executed it perfectly. We have a thing we do on a semi-regular basis called 'eye in the sky' where we'll show our guys proper use of cuts and relays and a lot of things, and that was just a textbook example of how you do a cut and relay.
"I thought that kind of sparked us and got us going."
The Gamecocks only had to use one relief pitcher in the seven-inning game, setting itself up nicely for a Saturday doubleheader that will start at 1 p.m. with Noah Hall and Jack Mahoney scheduled to pitch.