Gamecocks drop midweek finale 11-9 against Charlotte

The final midweek game of 2023 for South Carolina baseball resembled many of the team’s recent games during its cold streak. The Gamecocks entered Tuesday night’s home tilt against Charlotte just 3-8 in the last 11 games, and lost their second consecutive home midweek game with a 11-9 defeat against the 49ers.

South Carolina (37-15) used eight different pitchers in the loss, a combination of trying to save relievers for the crucial Tennessee series beginning on Thursday and a lack of consistent success.

The key sequence game in the top of the eighth inning when Charlotte (26-25) plated four runs off Chris Veach to break a 7-7 tie. It started with an infield single and a walk sandwiched around a foul pop-up that put two runners on with two outs for the 49ers, before a Veach wild pitch moved them into scoring position. Charlotte center fielder Jake Cunningham laced a two-run single up the middle to break the tie, and he came around to score on a Brandon Stahlman RBI double before another wild pitch scored the final run of the 27-minute half inning.

"We brought him in there for the exact reason that we wanted him to stop the bleeding," Mark Kingston said about Veach. "We wanted to get a zero that inning because we could feel the momentum of our offense coming, and he obviously just didn't have it tonight. It backfired a little bit."

The Gamecocks did put two runs back on the board with a power surge in the bottom half of the inning when Dylan Brewer launched a two-run home run, something which was a returning theme despite the loss. South Carolina hit three home runs in the game, getting round-trippers from Cole Messina in the first inning and Talmadge LeCroy in the seventh before Brewer’s blast.

Messina’s home run — his 16th of the season — gave South Carolina a 3-0 lead in the first inning and it even extended to 4-0 before the frame ended, but the Gamecocks also left the bases loaded with a chance to tack on. But offense was a serious struggle for the home team with just one hit in the next five innings, most of the shutdown relief work coming from Miles Langhorne. In that time the 49ers pounded out 10 hits, using small-ball to put up seven runs and take a 7-5 lead.

Blake Jackson started the scoring with a two-run home run off starter Cade Austin, Charlotte did not need another home run the rest of the night. A three-run fifth inning rally off Austin Williamson all after the freshman reliever recorded the first two outs of the inning gave Charlotte its first lead of the ballgame, punctuated by a two-run double from Will Butcher off the wall in right-center.

"There's just areas where we need to be better," Kingston said. "Guys are getting some opportunities in the wake of some injuries and some issues, and the guys that are getting these opportunities need to do a better job."

LeCroy’s two-run home run in the seventh gave South Carolina a brief reprieve with a 7-7 tie and some momentum, but all of it instantly evaporated after the four-run eighth. And with what proved to be its final gasp for air, a baserunning mistake symptomatic of the team’s woes over the last three weeks ran it out of an inning.

When Gavin Casas popped out into shallow left field with Messina on first base and two outs in the eighth, it looked like the end of the inning. But miscommunication in left caused the ball to drop, seemingly giving the Gamecocks an opportunity to hit with the tying runs in scoring position. But third base coach Scott Wingo sent Messina around to score, a doomed decision from the start as he was comfortably out at home plate to end the inning.

"I haven't had a chance to talk to Scott yet," Kingston said. "It's him being aggressive, clearly. I have to look at the replay to see if it was the right decision or not. Scott has done a really good job all year making good decisions for us there. A player trying to make a play, a coach trying to make a play and again it just didn't work."

There was one more concerning note in the injury front as Will McGillis — making his first start since Mar. 24 — left the game again. He had an awkward check swing in the sixth inning and did stay in the game to finish his at-bat after consulting with the training staff, but was unable to continue defensively when the seventh rolled around.

"Don't know," Kingston said about his status. "It didn't feel good on the check swing. You saw the check swing after that he had to come out of the game, so I think he re-aggravated it. So we'll see."

The final series of the regular season will start at 7 p.m. Thursday against Tennessee at Founders Park.

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