South Carolina pitching staff dominant as Gamecocks top Furman in extra innings
South Carolina baseball coach Mark Kingston made it clear following his team’s weekend series loss to Clemson that he was frustrated with his team’s pitching staff, particularly the bullpen.
It’s safe to say Kingston’s message was received.
The Gamecocks held Furman to only three hits over 12 innings of work in a 3-1 win over the Paladins Tuesday night at Fluor Field in Greenville. USC’s bullpen pitched the final eight innings without allowing a hit and Wes Clarke hit a go-ahead two-run homer off Furman reliever Jordan Beatson with one out in the 12th inning to lift the Gamecocks to the victory.
South Carolina improves to 8-4 with the win, while the Paladins fall to 5-7.
“They were tremendous,” Kingston said of his pitching staff. “We had a pitcher’s only meeting today. We spent all of yesterday discussing what needed to be tweaked and changed and adjusted. I’m not going to give you the secrets because I don’t want our opponents to realize what we’re doing, but at the end of the day the guys were really, really good. And if we can be like that we’ll win these close games instead of letting them slip away.”
USC reliever Cam Tringali (1-0) earned the win for South Carolina, pitching five innings of no-hit baseball, with seven strikeouts. TJ Shook closed out the game with a perfect 12th inning to earn his second save of the season.
South Carolina’s pitching staff walked four batters in 12 innings on Tuesday after issuing 14 walks in 26 innings over the weekend against Clemson.
“The word attack is in there,” Kingston said of what he told his pitchers. “You’ve gotta be able to use both sides of the plate. You’ve gotta be able to attack both sides of the plate. When you do that it opens everything up.”
Clark, Jeff Heinrich and Colin Burgess each had two hits for South Carolina, while Jake Crawford had a pair of hits for Furman, including a solo home run in the second inning for Furman’s only run of the game.
Heinrich left the game in the eighth inning with a hamstring injury, while reliever Graham Lawson left the game in the seventh with a back injury. Kingston was unsure on the severity of the injuries.
Beyond the box score
It had to feel good for Kingston to see his pitching staff bounce back, particularly Tringali. The sophomore entered Tuesday’s game with an 8.31 ERA and opponents were hitting .421 against him. He lowered his ERA to 3.86 and his batting average against to .229 by the end of the night. Tringali retired 16 of the 17 batters he faced, only allowing a hit by pitch.
The most impressive moment of the game for Tringali came in the ninth inning. Furman first baseman Jared Mihalik hit a ball to deep center that USC centerfielder Noah Myers misplayed, allowing Mihalik to advance to third with one out. But Tringali got a fly out to shallow left and a strikeout to end the threat.
“(Pitching) coach (Skylar) Meade came out and said, ‘We’re going to get a pop up and a strikeout, and that’s what we got,’” Tringali said. “We were going up in the zone, got him to pop up, so when we got that second out, life is a lot easier with two outs.”
Key inning
After struggling at the plate all night, South Carolina’s bats finally got going in the 12th. In addition to Clarke’s two-run homer, Brady Allen and Noah Campbell drilled balls to the warning track, while Dallas Beaver doubled.
“It took us about three hours and 30 minutes to get our bats going,” Kingston said. “That last inning we hit what could’ve been four homers some nights, but at the end of the game we came over here to get a win and we did that.”
Stars of the game
Tringali, Clarke and Burgess were the keys to the win. Burgess, who did not start a game over the weekend against Clemson, played well behind the plate and hit a pair of balls off the wall for doubles.
Rained out
South Carolina’s baseball game that was scheduled for Wednesday night at Founders Park was canceled and will not be made up. The Gamecocks were set to face Boston College on Wednesday. The Eagles were in town on their way to a weekend series at Clemson.
WHEN DO THE GAMECOCKS PLAY NEXT?
Who: South Carolina vs Cornell
When: 7 p.m. Friday, 4 p.m. Saturday, 1:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: Founders Park
Watch: Streaming online on SEC Network Plus via WatchESPN
Radio: 107.5 FM in Columbia area
This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 9:54 PM.
