This might be what it looks like the rest of the way.
South Carolina baseball reached its low point at least from an injury perspective going into Tuesday’s home midweek against Charleston Southern. No Ethan Petry, out with a shoulder injury. No Nathan Hall, still dealing with the heel injury he sustained at Texas A&M three weeks ago.
What do you end up with? A lineup that has no players with five home runs or 25 RBIs on the season, and one player with an average over .300. Just five hits in a game against Charleston Southern’s staff.
But in this case, a win.
A second inning wild pitch gave the Gamecocks the the lead, and a four-run seventh inning on just two hits extended it and allowed South Carolina to muscle out a 5-3 victory, improving its record to 12-1 in midweeks this season with just one more — May 13 against Winthrop — left on the schedule.
"When you don't have a lot of home run power in your lineup, you better come through with the RBI opportunities," Paul Mainieri said. "We did just enough today because our pitching was really good. But on another day where our pitching gives up seven or eight runs, it's not going to be enough."
Not that it was easy, though.
The Gamecocks struggled all night against a collection of soft-tossing Charleston Southern (24-17) arms, fluttering breaking balls and floating curve balls dropping into the zone all night. South Carolina’s (26-20) offense struck out eight times and started the game 0-for-11 with runners on base, taking walks and building opportunities to score without getting the big hit most of the night. The only run of the first six frames crossed in the second inning when two walks, a balk and a wild pitch allowed Jordan Carrion to trot home.
Jarvis Evans Jr. returned to the mound in midweek action for the first time since his start against College of Charleston on Mar. 18, and was tremendous. Evans fired 5 ⅔ innings of two-hit shutout ball, allowing soft singles in the second and third innings for the only hits of the game against him.
"I felt great," Evans said. "I felt great all day. Just was kind of sticking to my routine. In the last bullpen I was working with coach [Terry] Rooney and coach [Chris] Gordon switching up fastball grips, trying to separate the two between two-seam and four-seam. That worked well today; I kind of had both of those working."
Caleb Jones and Ashton Crowther took the game through the seventh, where the offense finally pieced together one big inning. A Gavin Braland single followed by two walks loaded the bases for Kennedy Jones, who took a 3-2 pitch inside to force in a run. Evan Stone followed Jones with the one and only Gamecock hit of the night with runners on base, a two-run smash right back up the middle which proved to be the game-deciding hit.
"Evan Stone came through with a clutch single," Mainieri said. "And we had other opportunities, we just didn't cash in. Somebody is going to have to step up. Tonight Evan Stone did in one critical situation."
Charleston Southern returned the favor with two runs in the eighth and even brought the tying run to the plate with one out, but freshman reliever Ryder Garino trotted in from the bullpen and put out the fire with a strikeout and a flyout.
South Carolina continues its penultimate homestand of the season on Friday night with the opener of a three-game series against Florida.
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