South Carolina 'doing everything right' after 12-0 win over Queens
Less than a full year removed from Tommy John surgery, James Hicks climbed the mound for just the third start of his college career.
And like a relay runner taking the baton from the rest of the starting rotation — specifically Eli Jerzembeck after his four strong innings on Tuesday — Hicks turned in another stellar performance from a South Carolina starting pitcher.
His five shutout innings amounted to the longest outing of his college career, allowing just two singles and two walks on 55 pitches as South Carolina won 12-0 to pick up its fifth straight victory to open 2023.
"It's definitely been an up and down thing for me," Hicks said. "There were some rough months this summer just coming in doing the same thing every day pretty much, but these past few weeks that I've pitched have been everything that I've been thinking about this whole journey."
Through five games South Carolina (5-0) starting pitchers have combined to throw 24 innings, allowing just 16 hits — 12 singles and four doubles — with four runs and 25 strikeouts to just four walks. Left-handed reliever Matthew Becker made his season debut and picked up right where Hicks left off by returning six out of the seven batters he faced before Austin Williams and Dylan Eskew finished out the shutout.
South Carolina’s 68-run outburst through the first four games of the season was mostly built around home runs, a nation-leading 19 of them specifically. But against Queens (0-4), the Gamecocks found a different way to scratch across offense. In the first inning it was a double, a walk, two groundouts and a wild pitch to plate two runs. Situational baseball, first by Caleb Denny to advance Carson Hornung and Braylen WImmer into scoring position, and then by Cole Messina to knock the first run in on a groundout to short before Wimmer grabbed himself a run on the wild pitch.
Then in the second inning, the Gamecocks made their own luck.
After Queens first baseman Riley Cheek lost a softly hit ball from Wimmer in the sun that should have been the third out, Denny immediately made the Royals pay with a two-run double out to right field.
"That's our whole mindset, that's our whole approach," Mark Kingston said about drawing walks. "On each pitch our guys are graded on should they have swung or should they not have swung. We have a stat that grades their pitch decisions and their swing decisiosn. And the guys that are the best at that tend to be the best hitters."
There was the requisite power in the third inning, this time from transfer first baseman Casas. The former Vanderbilt man hit his fourth home run in as many games on an opposite field shot out to left field, taking advantage of a 12 MPH wind blowing from right to left to get just enough for a 346-foot home run.
"I knew they wanted me to ground out into a double play,so I was kind of expecting a changeup," Casas said. "I got the changeup and was able to stay back and drive it the other way."
Finally the floodgates opened in the seventh inning, and the offense made some history in the process. When Denny hit a three-run double on a hot grounder that rolled all the way to the wall, it made the score 11-0 South Carolina. That represented the first time since March 1997 — Ray Tanner’s first year leading the program — the Gamecocks have scored double-digit runs in five consecutive games.
South Carolina will open its second weekend series of the season on Friday afternoon, staying at home to take on the Penn Quakers for three games. A win on Friday would make six in a row, matching the longest winning streak last year’s team had the entire season.
"We're just doing everything right in all phases right now," Kingston said. "Another good day."
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