Pitching 'could be interesting' Tuesday night

Before the season Mark Kingston was asked a question about “getting weird” with his pitching staff, he laughed, answered it and moved on to the next question at the press conference.

At the time, it didn’t seem like South Carolina would need to be unique in its pitching approach, but things changed quickly with injuries mounting on the mound.

So Tuesday things might actually get weird.

“You’re going to see everybody get in and get out of the game tomorrow so they’re available for the weekend series,” Kingston said on 107.5 FM Monday. “That means you might see a Brady Allen or Josiah Sightler as well. It could be interesting.”

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Yes, Brady Allen and Josiah Sightler—two players that haven’t toed a rubber competitively since high school—could get their numbers called when the Gamecocks (26-25, 7-20 SEC) take on USC Upstate Tuesday night.

South Carolina’s pitching staff has been utterly decimated this season with injuries with the group going into the final four games with just 10 healthy arms.

With three pitchers reserved for the weekend rotation, that really means there's just seven arms available Tuesday. The Gamecocks will start Parker Coyne (2-0, 5.19 ERA) but after that it’s anything goes.

That means position players like Sightler and Allen could find themselves on the mound at some point against the Spartans.

“You just go out there and whoever’s healthy will play and try to win the game. There’s no secrets,” Kingston said. “Obviously, we’ll have to manage pitching that gives us a chance to hold our own at Mississippi State. Whoever’s available, get ready to play.”

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Outside of trying to finish with a winning record, Tuesday’s game against USC Upstate doesn’t have any major consequences—good or bad—in the grand scheme of this.

Winning or losing won’t directly impact the team’s SEC Tournament chances, which has become the focal point of this week.

That’s why Kingston is putting the majority of his eggs in the basket for this weekend’s series that determines whether they’ll make the SEC Tournament, which starts Thursday in Starkville.

“The bottom line is we can’t throw anybody tomorrow in a manner that would not allow them to pitch on Thursday, Friday or Saturday,” Kingston said on 107.5 FM. “It’s a short week because it’s the last week, so that condenses things a little bit more.”

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The Gamecocks can still make the conference tournament, but they need a lot of help. It’s a three-team race—South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky—for the final spot with the Gamecocks having no way to win a three-way tiebreaker.

They do have the head-to-head tiebreaker over Kentucky while Alabama has the one over South Carolina.

To get a spot in the tournament, they’d need to win one more game than Alabama and fare the same, if not better than Kentucky, to get into a tournament they desperately want to play in.

“That means everything,” Jacob Olson said. “That’s everything you work for since August, all fall with everything you did in that time to get to this point in the season. It’s all on the line going into a hostile environment in Mississippi State. We’re just going to have to bring it.”