Eli Jones embracing midweek role as South Carolina beats Presbyterian 5-0
Eli Jones has not pitched on a weekend yet this season, but he has fully cemented himself as South Carolina’s midweek ace.
The right-handed sophomore came on in relief Tuesday against Presbyterian and fired four perfect innings, tying his career high in strikeouts and guiding South Carolina to a routine 5-0 win at Founders Park.
"Tuesdays haven't been great for us, especially last year," Mark Kingston said. "Just to come out and have a good workmanlike win, I'm happy with that."
Jones has now thrown 14 ⅔ innings across four midweek games for South Carolina (17-1), allowing only two runs and only issuing only one walk in those outings against 18 strikeouts. Jones has now thrown 153 out of his 215 (71.1 percent) of his pitches this season for strikes, and displayed that same pinpoint command on Tuesday with 35 strikes on 47 pitches (74.4 percent). At one point through the middle of his outing he struck out five out six batters, completely dominating a Presbyterian (7-10) lineup that only picked up three singles all day.
He followed on from the work of starter Matthew Becker and reliever Nick Proctor. Becker started the second consecutive midweek game and managed to get the first eight outs, but his shaky control kept him from finishing out the third inning after he issued two walks in the frame. Proctor came on and ended the inning with a strikeout in his only batter faced of the day, and from there it was the Jones show.
"It's awesome just getting a role anywhere," Jones said. "I love playing baseball no matter if it's a Tuesday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday. It's still the same sport I've always played. I love it; that's why we're all here. Obviously if I didn't love it, I wouldn't be here. It's nice to have a role. I know my teammates have my back, and it's good to have my teammates' backs.
Coming into Tuesday the Gamecocks had scored within the first two innings of every midweek game, and Talmadge LeCroy made sure that streak continued. With a 12 MPH wind blowing out towards right field and Ethan Petry on first base, LeCroy got one up in the air out towards right. It just barely carried over the fence, a 350-foot wind-aided shot that put South Carolina on top early. A third run crossed later in the inning on a wild pitch, and then the power-hitting duo in the middle of the lineup stepped up in the third inning.
Gavin Casas and Cole Messina led off the third inning with back-to-back home runs, the second time in the last four games the duo has done it after it also turned the trick in the third inning of Friday’s game against Bethune-Cookman. Casas became the first player to reach double-figures in home run with his 10th of the season, and Messina is not far from joining him with eight now. Casas’ 10 home runs also puts him in a tie with Wes Clarke’s 10 home runs in 18 games to start the 2021 season, a year Clarke went on to hit the most home runs of any player in the Mark Kingston era with 23.
"You see the sequence of pitching and it kind of reflects on how they pitch to me as well," Petry said about hitting behind Casas and Messina. "After Gavin, it's uneral. The pitcher is flustered, they're going to make mistakes and obviously with Cole, he's going to pop one out too."
Austin Williamson and Cade Austin cleaned up the end of another midweek win, South Carolina’s sixth of the season in as many tries. Most of it due to Jones, who has been a staple of the midweek efforts all year providing a solid, consistent weapon on the mound Kingston simply did not have available last year through a slew of injuries.
"These midweek games are all about pitching depth and giving yourself a chance to win with quality pitching," Kingston said. "So that whether you score five or 10 offensively you feel like you should win them. And we have that pitching depth."
Not only does he have a lot of depth, he has a enough to start planning out his weekends. Becker and Jones both threw 47 pitches, which Kingston said was a plan to keep them under 50 pitches in an effort to save them for the first weekend of SEC play.
That 30-game conference slate will start with a three-game series at Georgia this weekend.
"We have a bunch of big weekends coming up," Jones said. "But I think we're really prepared for it."