USC's starting pitching remains a mystery — and its X-factor — heading into NCAAs

Who exactly will take the mound in what order for South Carolina baseball's NCAA tournament regional in Greenville, North Carolina, is not clear yet — coach Mark Kingston is still keeping the order of his starting rotation under wraps.

But what is clear are the pitchers from whom Kingston intends to draw his starters, and the fact that whoever he does choose will be likely be the key to USC's chances.

"They're all rested so at this point they're all on plenty of rest. For me, it will be matchups, it will be making sure your best guys get out there in the proper order, it'll be who's trending in the best direction, because obviously we have four guys that we can look at as starters at this point, and who's pitching the best as of late. There's no mulligans at this point, so we need to make sure the best guys are getting out there, and you might go with the hot hand at this point," Kingston said Tuesday.

Those four are junior Adam Hill, sophomore Cody Morris and freshmen Logan Chapman and Carmen Mlodzinski. Mlodzinski has been the Gamecocks' midweek starter and started the team's only win of the SEC tournament, going five innings in a 4-2 victory over Missouri. Morris is the only one of the quartet not to pitch in Hoover, Alabama, but Kingston later said on 107.5 FM that that won't have an impact on when he decides to start Morris.

Strong pitching, particularly strong starting pitching, will be the X-factor in this tourney for Carolina, Kingston said.

"I won't call it a concern because I have faith in our players, but going into this region, if we want to win this regional or the next game we play, we really need to pitch well," Kingston said. "It all starts on the mound ... it all starts with our pitching. When we pitch well, we win. When we're inconsistent, when we don't throw strikes, that's when we struggle. On some of those days our offense has been able to bail us out and some they have not."

The statistics back that up — Gamecock hurlers have put together 13 quality starts this season, and the team's record in those games is 11-2. But when the pitching has been off, it has resulted in some lopsided outcomes. South Carolina's staff ERA of 4.31 is on pace to be the program's worst since 2009.

Considering USC lost more than 80 percent of its innings pitched from last year's team, that mark is not unexpected — Kingston said at the very beginning of the season that the pitching staff's inexperience would be the team's biggest question mark.

But heading to the East Carolina regional, Kingston emphasized that there is simply no margin for error for the Gamecocks. With that in mind, he said his decisions about who to start, when to pull that starter and which relievers to use will be primarily guided by a desire to win in the moment, and less about strategically setting up future matchups.

"The biggest thing you have to do is make sure you win that day," Kingston said. "But it also is a pool game. You have to make this next shot, but you have to understand there's another shot after that, another shot after that. A great majority is making sure you win today's game and make decisions that will help you win that game, but there's also a small part of that that says 'alright, if we use that guy, we may not be able to use him tomorrow,' so you have to strategically know who to use based on the score, based on the matchups."

Friday schedule

South Carolina (33-24) vs. Ohio State (36-22), 2 p.m. (ESPN2)

East Carolina (43-16) vs. UNC Wilmington (37-21), 7 p.m. (WatchESPN)

Ticket info: Beginning at 9 a.m. Wednesday, sales open for the general public. All-session ticket books are available for $90, $72 and $60 depending on seat locations, while tickets for single sessions (games) — priced at $15, $12 and $10 — will go on sale Friday at 11 a.m. Tickets can be purchased in person or over the phone by calling (800) DIAL-ECU or (252) 737-4500 during normal business hours through Thursday.

This story was originally published May 29, 2018 at 5:56 PM with the headline "USC's starting pitching remains a mystery — and its X-factor — heading into NCAAs."