Kerry’s gem, Eyster’s slam fuel Gamecocks to series win over Kentucky
Coming out of the bullpen last weekend, Brett Kerry went six strong innings and helped push South Carolina baseball to a crucial win over Mississippi State.
The performance was enough to convince the Gamecock coaching staff to give the junior his first start in 15 months on Saturday against Kentucky. Kerry rewarded their faith with a gem, guiding USC to a 9-0 victory and series win — and throwing the program’s first complete game shutout since 2014.
“Probably the best outing we’ve seen all year,” coach Mark Kingston said in a postgame interview with the program’s staff. “He just put his us on his back — nine innings, (94) pitches, that’s incredible. So he was everything we needed today. Offense backed him, defense backed him, but the story of the day was Brett Kerry.”
Over the course of nine nearly perfect innings, Kerry allowed just four hits, striking out 10 and walking none. He did it with ruthless efficiency, throwing 67 of his 94 pitches for strikes and never needing more than 14 pitches in an inning, attacking the zone and consistently inducing weak contact.
“It’s that Sunday, first-out-of-the-bullpen mindset that I’m just trying to go as long as I can, trying to be efficient,” Kerry said of his approach to starting. “Not to pitch too much for the strikeout, but at the same time still go and make sure I locate the fastball and cut it where I want.”
The Wildcats never got multiple runners on base in an inning, and their only extra base hit of the game, a double, came when junior left fielder Josiah Sightler appeared to lose a soft fly ball in the sun. Kerry responded to that leadoff hit by getting three quick groundouts.
Kerry’s dominant performance was well-supported by the Gamecock lineup, which was already coming off a 12-run outburst in the series opener. With 21 runs through two games, Carolina has already scored more runs than it did in five of the previous eight SEC series.
For the first half of the game, though, the offense was relatively quiet, scratching two runs across off RBI groundouts from juniors Josiah Sightler and David Mendham, and needing lots of help from Kentucky starter Sean Harney, who walked three and hit four Gamecock batters in just 4 2/3 innings.
In the sixth inning, though, Andrew Eyster blew the game wide open after the bases were loaded on two singles and a walk, launching an opposite-field home run to right for his second grand slam of the year.
“That was awesome. We kinda struggled yesterday with guys in scoring position, so it was good to get a good swing off with the bases loaded,” Eyster said. “He just threw a good pitch, it was a fastball low and away, and I just put a good swing on it.”
Eyster drove in another run in the eighth, reaching on an error, and sophomore Braylen Wimmer slugged his second home run of the weekend in the ninth to cap the outburst.
NEXT USC BASEBALL GAME
Who: No. 25 South Carolina vs. Kentucky
When: 1 p.m. Sunday
Where: Kentucky Proud Park, Lexington, Kentucky
Watch: Streaming online on SEC Network Plus via WatchESPN
This story was originally published May 15, 2021 at 5:09 PM.
