Morris: Pirates expose holes in USC bullpen

GREENVILLE, N.C. — The most frightful sight all season for the South Carolina baseball team was pitching coach Mark Calvi walking to the mound and signaling to the bullpen.

Late in the season and through the early rounds of the Greenville Regional, Calvi’s trips to the mound were mostly limited to pep talks for his starting pitchers. USC essentially was not forced to use its bullpen, and that usually equated to a Gamecocks win.

It all caught up to USC in the biggest game of the season Monday night at Clark-LeClair Stadium.

Four times, Calvi motioned for a relief pitcher. Four times, Calvi and USC could not find an answer to solving East Carolina’s potent bats. The Pirates pounded USC’s relievers for eight runs over five innings in the 10-9 loss.

Just as effective starting pitching pushed USC to the regional championship game, an ineffective bullpen dashed all dreams of the Gamecocks advancing to a Super Regional and to the College World Series.

Inevitably, a solid opponent will expose a team’s weakness. If USC’s bullpen had not been exposed by East Carolina, it surely would have been by North Carolina in the next round.

“It happened to us,” USC coach Ray Tanner said. “We just weren’t able to close it out when you get right down to it.”

USC led 6-0 after three innings. It led 7-2 heading to the bottom of the sixth inning. It needed three more outs with a 9-6 lead in the ninth. The bullpen could not hold any of the leads.

“Almost,” Tanner said when asked if the pitching had lined up according to his pregame plan. He got what he wanted out of starting pitcher Jay Brown, who allowed a couple of runs before being removed with one out in the fifth inning.

“With the heat and with Parker (Bangs) rested and (Alex) Farotto rested, let’s think somewhere four to five (innings),” Tanner said he told Brown prior to the game.

Neither Bangs nor Farotto had pitched previously in the regional. Both pitchers had 10 days between appearances, and Tanner avoided using either in the regional with the idea they would be needed in the finale.

Bangs had been particularly effective of late, allowing two runs over 10ð innings in his past four appearances. Farotto also had been on his game, allowing one run in 4ð innings over five appearances.

“He just wasn’t as sharp tonight as he has been,” Tanner said of Bangs, who entered the game with USC leading 6-2. “That sort of put a void in where we were, and they made a little bit of a comeback.”

East Carolina touched Bangs and Farotto for four runs in the sixth and seventh innings, and when Farotto walked a batter to lead off the ninth, Tanner had seen enough. He called Curtis Johnson out of the bullpen.

At one point in his career, Johnson had been a standout reliever for USC. But he never seemed to recover from shoulder surgery during the 2008 season. He pitched most of this season on guts and guile.

With USC leading 9-6, Johnson first walked Dustin Harrington on five pitches. Then he hung a one-strike slider to Devin Harris, who sent the ball deep into the Greenville night — the game was tied, and the air was sucked out of USC’s balloon.

In the 10th inning, Johnson allowed a one-out double to Kyle Roller, who scored the winning run on a single by Harris off Sam Dyson. Tanner had hoped Dyson, the staff ace, who threw 130 pitches in Friday’s win over George Mason, could get one out.

It was a move of desperation by Tanner, one made by a coach who knew there was nowhere else to turn in a shattered bullpen.

“You can talk about things we didn’t do,” Tanner said, “but you have to talk about the things they did as well, and they came up big.”

No doubt, East Carolina came up with the most crucial of hits. So, too, did USC’s offense, which knew it had to produce big numbers because of a shaky bullpen.

“We came in with the mentality that we needed to score maybe 10 runs to win the game,” said USC left fielder DeAngelo Mack, “especially with the way these guys swing the bats.”

USC fell one run short. East Carolina hit the 10-run total on the nose, thanks in no small part to USC’s lack of a bullpen.

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