Walks, pitching woes doom South Carolina in Super Regional-opening loss to Arkansas

Walks, wild pitches and hit batters gave Arkansas a slim edge over South Carolina baseball through most of their NCAA Super Regional opener on Saturday.

Then the Hogs blew the game open, and now the Gamecocks' season is on the brink after they lost 9-3 to start the best-of-three series.

'For most of the night it was a really good ball game," Carolina coach Mark Kingston said. "Just got away from us there at the end. I thought the difference was the number of free passes that we gave them and they didn't give us."

In front of 11,722 raucous fans at Baum Stadium, USC (36-25) got off to a strong start. Junior ace Adam Hill needed just eight pitches to roll through the first inning, and senior second baseman Justin Row got a check-swing single in the second, then scored two batters later when senior catcher Hunter Taylor caught a 1-1 offering from Arkansas junior starter Blaine Knight and launched it into the left-center field gap.

After two frames, Knight was at 41 pitches and laboring, while Hill had just 24. After that, however, the pitchers' performances flipped — Hill needing 56 pitches to get his next six outs, while Knight took just 54 to go four more innings.

"Guys have to throw strikes. They have to make adjustments," Kingston said. "And if you get to the point where guys aren't throwing strikes, you need to get the next man in, and that's why Adam unfortunately only threw four innings tonight."

Arkansas tied the game in the bottom of the third with a one-out walk off Hill, then a smashed single through the right side of the infield to put runners on the corners. A sacrifice fly plated a run.

Just a few minutes later, however, junior shortstop LT Tolbert put USC back up again, turning on an inside pitch and sending it over the right field wall for a solo home run.

"I thought we had some really good at-bats off of (Knight),' Tolbert said. "The at-bat I hit the homer, he threw first pitch slider for a strike, and I was waiting for a fastball and he threw one over the plate, and I got a good swing on it."

In the bottom half of that frame, the Razorbacks seized the lead without any hits leaving the infield against reliever Eddy Demurias — freshman third baseman Casey Martin hit a hard ground ball to third for a single, freshman left fielder Heston Kjerstad was hit by a pitch and senior DH Luke Bonfield drew a five-pitch walk to load the bases.

Sophomore Dominic Fletcher was then also hit by a pitch, forcing a run in, and a sacrifice fly from redshirt senior second baseman Carson Shaddy made it 3-2.

South Carolina rallied once more in the sixth inning, as senior designated hitter Madison Stokes crushed a hanging 0-2 breaking ball from Knight over the left-center field fence to tie the game.

"Under the circumstances, with a guy like (Knight) on the mound and one of the top teams in the country ... you'll take your chances. For the most part this year if we can get to the seventh with a close game, we like our chances," Kingston said.

The tie was short-lived though, as Shaddy led off the bottom of the sixth with a walk, then methodically worked his way around the bases, going to second on a fielder's choice, third on a wild pitch and scoring on an RBI single.

The Razorbacks put the game on ice in the seventh inning, as Martin doubled down the left field line to open the frame, followed by a walk for Bonfield. A wild pitch moved the runners to second and third, and USC coach Mark Kingston made the call for Demurias to intentionally walk Fletcher. Shaddy made him pay with a double to deep left field that cleared the bases, making it 7-3.

"I really wasn't trying to do too much. I was just trying to put the bat on the ball," Shaddy said. "With less than two outs, I was just trying to get the ball in play and hopefully to the outfield."

Three singles, a passed ball and a sacrifice fly added two more runs to cap the night's scoring. Moving forward, however, all the Gamecocks expressed confidence in the team's ability to bounce back.

"We've had our backs against the wall a lot this year, and we always come back stronger and come back with a response, so that's what I expect," Hill said.

THREE POINTS

Star of the game: LT Tolbert, the only Gamecock with multiple hits Saturday, continued a solid postseason with his seventh long ball of the season.

Play of the game: The intentional walk in the seventh by Demurias to load up the bases was clearly to set up a double play, but considering Fletcher entered Saturday's game hitting 37 points lower than Shaddy, as well as 89 points behind in on-base percentage and with significantly less speed, the decision by Kingston went over poorly with fans.

'That was a no-brainer," Kingston said, defending the move. "Obviously we were pitching to (Fletcher)when runners at first and second, and as soon as the ball got past Hunter, put guys at second and third with one out and a quality lefty up there. You walk him, and Shaddy's ground ball rate is 60 percent so we thought that that made the most sense. Got to two strikes on him and then just left the ball up and he put a good swing on it."

Stat of the game: Eight walks, two hit batters and two wild pitches for South Carolina pitchers — their season worst for walks allowed in a game is 11, but that was in a 14-1 loss.

"You just have to try to wait (Hill) out a little bit, try to get his pitch count up a little bit," Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said of his team's strategy going into the game. "It looked like after the first couple innings we weren't going to be able to do that ... and then we battled, and we had a couple of full counts with guys fouling balls off. We just chipped away."

NEXT

Who: South Carolina (36-25) vs. Arkansas (43-18)

When: 3 p.m. Sunday, June 10

Where: Baum Stadium, Fayetteville, Arkansas

Watch: ESPN

Listen: 107.5 FM in Columbia, South Carolina

Probable pitchers: South Carolina — So. RHP Cody Morris (8-3, 3.68 ERA); Arkansas — Jr. LHP Kacey Murphy (8-4, 2.86 ERA)

This story was originally published June 9, 2018 at 10:16 PM with the headline "Walks, pitching woes doom South Carolina in Super Regional-opening loss to Arkansas."