Vanderbilt clobbers ice-cold Gamecocks 12-0
Vanderbilt snapped its three-game losing streak Thursday night at Carolina Stadium while extending South Carolina’s to five games.
The No. 5 Commodores continued the Gamecocks' woes with a 12-0 victory behind the lights-out pitching of right-hander Carson Fulmer, who tossed seven scoreless innings.
“Fulmer obviously was very, very dominant,” USC coach Chad Holbrook said. “He’s the real deal when he’s locating his fastball the way he did tonight. His breaking ball was spectacular. He’s as good as there is in college baseball.”
The two teams are headed in distinctly different directions, as the Commodores improved to 29-10 overall and 12-4 in the SEC, good for first place in the Eastern Division. The Gamecocks, who have lost 13 of their last 19 games, fell to 23-16 overall and 6-10 in the SEC.
“The frustration has piled up, that’s for sure,” Holbrook said. “We just need somebody to step up and make a play and do something in dramatic fashion and maybe we’ll move on. We keep waiting for that to happen, and it just hasn’t happened yet. Somebody has to step up and give us a heroic performance and maybe we’ll relax and play the way we’re capable. Obviously, morale is low, and it’s disheartening in many ways.”
The teams will play the second game of the series Friday at 7 p.m. It will be televised on the SEC Network. USC left-hander Jack Wynkoop will face Vanderbilt right-hander Walker Buehler.
The 6-foot Fulmer (7-1), who’s projected to be a first-round pick in June’s MLB draft, allowed just three singles and one walk while striking out nine. He lowered his ERA to 1.69 and upped his strikeout total to 90 in 64 innings.
“He’s really got electric stuff,” USC third baseman DC Arendas said. “He throws three pitches for strikes, and we didn’t do a good enough job as hitters taking one of the pitches away.”
The Commodores scored once in the first inning without the benefit of a hit. USC left-hander Vince Fiori (3-1) walked Rhett Wiseman, who stole second, advanced to third on catcher Hunter Taylor’s throwing error, and scored on a wild pitch.
Fiori, the junior reliever who received his first career start after 52 relief appearances due to the injury to Wil Crowe, had a solid outing going into the sixth inning before Vanderbilt broke the game open with four runs. The Commodores collected four hits in the inning and capitalized on a throwing error by second baseman Max Schrock.
“I was hoping for three to five innings, and Vince gave us a little bit more than that,” Holbrook said. “He kept them at bay for the most part. That’s all I can ask from him in his first start. He gave us a chance there in the middle.”
Fiori allowed just two runs, one earned, on three hits in 5 1/3 innings. Five pitchers followed him with little effectiveness, as Vanderbilt finished with 12 hits.
“I’ll do whatever coach wants me to do, whether that’s starting or out of the bullpen,” Fiori said. “I try to pitch to the best of my ability every time I’m out there. I’ll do anything to help this team win.”
In the seventh inning, Vanderbilt added four more runs on four more hits, including Ro Coleman’s solo home run, his first of the season, and Bryan Reynolds’ two-run double. Reynolds collected three hits and three RBIs on the night, while Coleman also had four hits, including two doubles, and two RBIs.
“We were right there for the first half of the game. They outplayed us in the second half,” Arendas said. “You’ve got to play a complete game, and that’s something we’ve struggled with. Obviously, we’ve got to play better and just win each inning, break it down into nine one-inning games.”
This story was originally published April 16, 2015 at 11:03 PM with the headline "Vanderbilt clobbers ice-cold Gamecocks 12-0."