Why this weekend was 'productive' for South Carolina baseball

What a difference a week makes.

This time last week the Gamecocks were coming off a series loss to Clemson and reeling entering the final weekend before SEC play starts.

Now, they’re winners of four straight and showed head coach Mark Kingston some things over the last four games to make him feel good about where things are with their next series marking the start of conference play.

“This was a very productive week for us,” Kingston said, “especially for our pitching.”

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The Gamecock bullpen had been shaky to start the year, giving up late leads twice to Northwestern and again in the rubber match against the Tigers.

The struggles prompted Kingston and pitching coach Skylar Meade to change some things up and approach the bullpen differently—the details of which Kingston won’t delve into—but whatever they did worked.

Over the last four games—an extra-inning win over Furman and a series sweep against Cornell—South Carolina’s bullpen pitched almost 19 innings and has allowed just three earned runs.

“We’re getting close. We’re seeing where guys look the most comfortable and seeing guys get their feet wet. The nice thing is we’ve not had to ask guys to do too much. It started Tuesday night with guys setting the tone,” Kingston said. “They were really good. This weekend we were able to get guys in and get guys out with low pitch counts and we didn’t have to extend anybody. That was something we wanted to see.”

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Neither Furman nor Cornell sport SEC-level offenses, but the bullpen numbers the last few games (18.2 innings) are staggering: 1.45 ERA, .643 WHIP, an .083 batting average against with 28 strikeouts to just seven walks.

“We’re one of the best team in the country when we come in and throw strikes. All our stuff is really good, especially in the bullpen. We have a lot of high-quality arms. When those guys come in and fill up the zone and pound it, we have a really good chance to win. it gives me the most confidence going in throwing five innings today,” said Brannon Jordan, who started Sunday. “When those guys are good, they’re really good.”

But it wasn’t just the bullpen that had a chance to get right over the last few games.

The Gamecock offense, after getting one-hit against Clemson Friday and scoring just twice Sunday against the Tigers, looked good in three games against the Big Red.

They’d score 10 runs twice and notch six more Sunday in the series finale.

Over a three game stretch, they slashed .278/.390/.474 with five homers and 18 RBI on the weekend.

“We’ve been working really hard to produce runs for our pitchers and give them some confidence,” said Brady Allen, who homered Sunday. “My teammates and coaches, we’ve been talking and preparing the game plan. It’s really helped us. I’m feeling really comfortable and I know our teammates are feeling it too.”

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One of the biggest boosts to that was top 500 prospect Brennan Milone getting back into the lineup Saturday after missing close to a month with a hip flexor injury.

He’d double Saturday and finished the weekend with one hit. Before injury, he was arguably the team’s best hitter as a freshman and Kingston is hoping he gets back to that level in the midweek game Tuesday against The Citadel and in their first SEC series starting Friday against Tennessee.

“Once he gets his eye down and gets his swing back it helps our lineup pretty significantly. I thought his swing was long this weekend, and that’s just a matter of not playing for a month,” Kingston said. “So he’ll get it figured out. He still took most of the right pitches. You see he still has his eye because he took some breaking balls down in the dirt maybe some people would have swung at. We have to make sure his swing’s at the length it needs to be at to hit really good pitching.”