Burned by strikeouts last year, Mark Kingston has different vision for USC’s offense
Last season, South Carolina brought postseason baseball back to Columbia, walked off against rival Clemson twice and featured a hitter in Wes Clarke who tied for the national lead in home runs.
Yet those in-season highs became overshadowed down the stretch and in the NCAA tournament, when the strikeouts mounted and the offense began to sputter. The Gamecock lineup played in one-dimensional fashion, with an all-or-nothing approach — and when the ball stopped flying over the wall, the scoring output dried up.
Coming off a “productive fall,” head coach Mark Kingston said Thursday he has a different offensive vision for the 2022 Gamecocks, one that addresses some of the issues that hampered USC late last season.
“If had to guess right now, we’ll probably hit less homers but score more runs,” Kingston said. “And at the end of the day, it is about scoring runs and eliminating runs from your opponent. I think we’ll have a better left-right balance. I think we’ll have the ability to be more athletic and potentially steal more bases and run the bases more aggressively. I think we’re going to strike out less.”
The Gamecocks will unquestionably miss the power of Clarke and Brady Allen, both of whom were drafted this summer. But the program is high on dynamic junior infielder Braylen Wimmer, who broke out with 11 home runs last season and blends power with speed. And the return of veterans Andrew Eyster, Josiah Sightler and catcher Colin Burgess gives the USC lineup a solid foundation.
Kingston and the Gamecocks turned to the transfer portal to help fortify the offense, adding two lefty bats to the mix in with Missouri transfer Brandt Belk and Vanderbilt transfer Matt Hogan and a veteran contact-oriented infielder in Virginia Tech’s Kevin Madden.
Kingston didn’t get to see Hogan in action this fall due to a wrist injury, but both Belk and Madden made strong impressions and project to make an impact for the Gamecocks right away.
“Belk is going to be an elite hitter for us, lifetime .300 hitter,” Kingston said. “Same with Madden, a lifetime .300 hitter at Virginia Tech. Both those guys are exactly what we needed: professional at-bats, don’t strike out, get on base, clutch hitters with very simple swings and repeatable swings. So those guys will be really good for us.”
The idea of having “professional at-bats” is one that is clearly important for this coaching staff, coming off a season in which the Gamecocks ranked next-to-last in the SEC in both batting average (.243) and on-base percentage (.344). Kingston said he sees promising signs that the team’s freshman class will have that kind of approach, with those newcomers showing patience and vision at the plate this fall.
Combined with the development of the team’s returning hitters and a few key transfers, Kingston is bullish on his offense as things stand in November.
“I think 1 through 9 we’ll be a tougher offense to pitch to, and for a lot of reasons,” Kingston said. “Because we got some guys that are older, because we’ve added some quality players, because we’ll have that left-right balance, and we’ll have more athleticism.
“So when you factor all that in, if I had to predict in November I think we’ll be an offense that scores more runs, I really do.”
This story was originally published November 4, 2021 at 1:50 PM.
