Gamecocks continue skid with first home midweek loss of 2023
The downward spiral continued for South Carolina baseball, as it did something it had not done all season to this point by dropping a home midweek game.
The Gamecocks were 11-1 in midweeks overall and 7-0 in them at Founders Park entering Tuesday afternoon’s contest against North Florida, but fell behind early and never recovered in a 8-5 defeat.
South Carolina (36-12) took an early lead on a Gavin Casas RBI double, but the good vibes ended quickly when North Florida (26-23) ripped off five runs in the third inning. The Ospreys deployed a similar small-ball approach to the one that gave the Gamecocks fits last weekend in their three losses at Kentucky. North Florida grinded out one base hit at a time against Dylan Eskew, turning six singles and a hit batter into a 5-1 advantage.
The two-out woes also continued a trend from the weekend, as three of the five runs came after Eskew was one strike away from ending the inning with limited damage.
"We pitched eight guys tonight," Mark Kingston said. "Most of them did well. Dylan really struggled, and that was the difference in the ballgame. He did the best he could, and he's done well for us this year at times. But most of the guys pitched fairly well tonight and gave us a chance to win. You can't have that one big inning, and that was the difference in the ballgame."
A fortuitous break got South Carolina’s offense going in the fourth inning when Michael Braswell hit what should have been a routine groundout leading off the inning, but an errant throw across the diamond allowed him to reach second base.
That play resulted in three unearned runs in the inning, the first coming when a Carson Hornung RBI single scored Braswell and the rest coming with Evan Stone cracked his third home run of the season on a line drive out to left field with two outs. The Gamecocks even loaded the bases in what turned into a 28-minute long half inning, but Cole Messina struck out a 3-2 pitch that preserved a one-run lead for the visitors.
But with momentum back in the home dugout, the situation immediately dissipated.
A Messina throwing error — South Carolina’s fourth in the last two games — allowed a lead-off walk to advance to third base, and Matthew Clements made the error count with an RBI single. One batter later Austin Briling dropped down a sacrifice bunt to third base, which Messina fielded cleanly and looked to fire across the diamond for an out.
Or it would have been, if anyone covered first base.
A mental mistake from the Gamecocks allowed all three runners to reach safely, and the visitors used their extra life to tack on another unearned run in the inning on a fielder’s choice which made it 7-4.
The rest of the afternoon was a parade of missed opportunities, as South Carolina constantly put runners on base without finding the big hit. The Gamecocks stranded 16 runners, at one point putting the tying run on base five consecutive innings without ever tying the game.
"They kept us off-balanced some," Kingston said about North Florida's pitching. "We left 16 guys on base; that's a lot. We've just got to keep going."
Messina’s bases loaded strikeout in the fourth was followed by a bases loaded chance in the fifth inning which only yielded one run in the fifth, a Braswell inning-ending double play with two runners on in the sixth and a Casas bases loaded lineout to end the seventh. South Carolina loaded the bases again in the eighth inning, but pinch hitter Caleb Denny struck out.
The eventual loss was prolonged by a ninth inning lightning delay which lasted two hours and two minutes, with South Carolina unable to get anything going with its final offensive chance after the delay.
This loss was South Carolina’s fourth in a row — the longest losing streak of the season — and sixth in the last eight games overall, and there will be no rest for the weary with a road series at No. 3 Arkansas starting at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
"Our guys are fighting their asses off right now," Kingston said. "All you had to do was hear the dugout late after the long rain delay. They really do care, it just didn't go our way tonight. We have to keep the faith and keep on moving."
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