Wes Clarke reaches historic home run milestone as Gamecocks shut out App State
Just as the regular season starts to wind down and the postseason draws near, South Carolina baseball’s Wes Clarke has found his stroke again.
The junior slugger joined elite company Tuesday, becoming just the ninth Gamecock ever to reach 20 home runs in a season, and he powered No. 21 USC to a 2-0 victory over Appalachian State in the final midweek contest of the year.
Clarke’s homer came in the bottom of the first inning with no runners on, going 378 feet to left field, and it proved to be all the offense Carolina needed to claim its fourth win in a row.
“Off the bat, I knew it was gone because I really back spun it well. Even though I didn’t hit as hard I can, I still hit it hard enough that I knew it was going to go,” Clarke said of his milestone long ball. “And it felt really good to finally be past that 19 mark and get to the 20.”
The home run also extended Clarke’s streak of reaching base safely to 10 consecutive games. In that stretch, he has gone 12 for 37 with 12 walks and five home runs. It has been a welcome return to form for him, as he started the season on a tear and was named a midseason All-American by Perfect Game, only to then become mired in a slump. Over the first six SEC series of the season, he was hitting just .180 with three home runs and one double.
“It’s just baseball. I know I say it all the time, but in the big leagues, guys get 600 plate appearances, and there’s ups and downs and there’s ebbs and flows and there’s hot streaks and cold streaks,” coach Mark Kingston said. “At the end of the day, you look up and he’s having a really good season. So he just needs to obviously continue to find out what makes him tick, and just want to see these kinds of performances on the weekends, too. That’s what’s most important now. ... I think he’s getting better every week and getting more comfortable with the kind of pitching that we see on the weekends.”
With his recent hot streak at the plate, Clarke is now tied with Derick Urquhart for 10th in program history in single-season home runs. The only other Gamecocks ahead of him are Yaron Peters, Nick Ebert, Justin Smoak (twice), Joe Dantin, Tripp Kelly, Steve Pearce (twice) and Tim Whittaker.
“It’s really awesome,” Clarke said of joining that exclusive club. “I’ve worked very hard, and that was my goal at the beginning of the year, was 20. And I feel like I have more in me. And it feels great to be with those guys and swinging it the way I am, and I plan on continuing it through the rest of the year and the postseason.”
With Clarke providing the early lead, the USC pitching staff picked up its second shutout in three games. Unlike this past Saturday, though, when junior Brett Kerry did it all with a complete game four-hitter, the Gamecocks used a combination of four arms to get the job done Tuesday.
Junior CJ Weins, who stepped into the midweek starter role after freshman Jack Mahoney went down with a torn UCL, picked up the victory, his first as a Gamecock. He set the tone early, striking out the side in the first inning, and went four no-hit innings before leaving on a predetermined pitch count.
“I kind of just got ... I wouldn’t say I got thrown into it, but it’s just a role that I need to learn how to accept a little bit, and that took a little bit of time,” Weins said of his adjustment to starting. “But I’m really getting confident in this role.”
Coming in after Weins, senior John Gilreath, junior Daniel Lloyd and freshman Will Sanders combined to allow just four baserunners the rest of the game, with two being erased off a double play and a pickoff. None of the runners advanced to scoring position.
“I think the key to winning midweek games is having pitching depth,” Kingston said. “When you have really good pitching depth like we do, it allows you to go out on a Tuesday night and limit the other team’s runs. A lot of times early in my career here, we would lose a lot of these Tuesday games and we just didn’t have the pitching depth yet. ... I think the number of runs we gave up on Tuesdays this year was pretty darn low.”
Meanwhile, the USC offense tacked on an insurance run in the fifth after senior infielder Joe Satterfield doubled down the third-base line, advanced to third on a groundout and scored when junior outfielder Brady Allen lofted a sacrifice fly to right field.
NEXT USC BASEBALL SERIES
Who: No. 21 South Carolina vs. No. 4 Tennessee
When: 7 p.m. Thursday, 7 p.m. Friday, noon Saturday
Where: Founders Park
Watch: Streaming online on SEC Network Plus on Thursday and Friday, SEC Network on Saturday
This story was originally published May 18, 2021 at 9:24 PM.
