Mark Kingston’s incredibly confident in his bullpen, and the numbers show why.
The Gamecock bullpen has been, for the most part, shutdown this season, but now it’s his job to restructure his pitching staff and determine which pitchers fit where.
And he’ll have to do it with four games coming this week, including three against reigning national champion Florida.
“We’re going to continue to pitch as many guys that will throw strikes and not give free passes as we can,” Kingston said. “We have a lot of guys with stuff and the guys that have stuff and don’t walk guys will probably get the majority of the innings.”
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The Gamecock bullpen has been stingy to start the season with seven pitchers coming out exclusively from the pen and not starting games.
Of those pitchers who’ve thrown at least a third of an inning, they’ve given up eight earned runs in 42 innings for an ERA of 1.71.
They have 33 strikeouts to just 11 walks and opposing teams are hitting .202 against strictly bullpen pitchers this season.
With the Sunday starter still in flux, it leaves the Gamecock bullpen in a state of uncertainty.
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Last weekend against Princeton, former closer Eddy Demurias got the start in game three, meaning the Gamecocks (11-5) used three different closers and will likely use the same approach moving forward.
All three closers—John Gilreath, Hunter Lomas and Carmen Mlodzinski—earned their first saves of the season this weekend with Mlodzinski pitching the final inning of the weekend with the winning run at the plate.
“He’s one of the guys we’re looking at that can close out games,” Kingston said of Mlodzinski. “But I wouldn’t say anyone at this point’s said, ‘I’m the closer.’ With Eddy being a potential starter now it’s going to be closer by committee for a while.”
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Demurias, who came out of the bullpen for his first three appearances this season, spent his fourth as the anchor of the weekend rotation.
He gave up four earned runs in five-plus innings, striking out four but not walking a batter, something that the coaching staff emphasizes.
The Sunday starter is still being evaluated and no decision about who will start Sunday against No. 2 Florida has been made yet.
With that still up in the air, Demurias (2-0, 4.15 ERA)—who started his career at Florida—is approaching this week as if he’ll get the ball to start against his former team.
“For now I will just so I can stay mentally locked in," he said. "Right now it’s not up to me, it’s up to the coaches. Whoever they go with I’ll be ready to do it.”
