No. 1 Texas takes opener as USC Gamecocks’ pitching gives up too many long balls
Texas shortstop Trey Faltine dug into the batter’s box Saturday at Founders Park as an errant fan behind home plate bellowed toward him.
“You suck!” the South Carolina-partial observer yelled.
Seventy minutes after sending the crowd into a tizzy for moving the visiting batter’s box closer to the dish, Faltine silenced his rather loud detractors when he a belted two-run homer over the right-field fence to help No. 1 Texas (13-2) to a 9-5 win over South Carolina (7-6) in Columbia.
“The issue we’re running into right now is we’re having to ask guys to throw one more inning than we should and they’re capable of throwing right now,” Gamecocks head coach Mark Kingston said postgame. “... At some point, we won’t have to do that and that’s when we’re going to really be able to take off.”
After Game 1 was bumped 24 hours due to rain on Friday, the hyped pitching matchup between Texas’ Pete Hansen and South Carolina’s Will Sanders never materialized on a chilly afternoon.
Sanders, for one, didn’t take the mound on Saturday. Kingston said he’s likely to pitch the seven-inning opening game of Sunday’s doubleheader.
For Game 1, the Gamecocks turned to Noah Hall, who labored through a 4.2-inning, 110-pitch outing in which he allowed seven runs on 10 hits — but he was more effective than his final line might indicate.
Hansen, meanwhile, hadn’t allowed more than five hits in any of his three outings this year. His 0.53 ERA entering the contest was among the best marks in the nation.
South Carolina paid no mind to that.
The Gamecocks tagged Hansen for four hits and a trio of runs in the first inning alone. Braylen Wimmer plated the first USC run of the afternoon with a single through the middle. A wild pitch later brought Wimmer home.
Josiah Sightler — who’s recorded hits in six of his past seven games — pushed South Carolina out to an early one-run lead when he laced a double down the first-base line to score Andrew Eyster from second.
Hansen settled down, but not before surrendering nine hits and five runs. He finished his day throwing six innings and striking out six, though he only found the zone with 60 of his 98 pitches.
“Obviously, he’s a great pitcher,” USC leadoff man Brandt Belk said. “But I think one thing we came out and did was we attacked right out the gate, which he’s not used to that happening a lot of times.”
South Carolina limped into Saturday’s contest as the losers of four straight. The Gamecocks had hit .198 as a team over that span. They finished Game 1 of their three-game set with the Longhorns notching their most hits since a 13-hit effort on opening day against UNC-Greensboro.
The usual suspects did their damage. Wimmer, Eyster, Michael Braswell and Kevin Madden each recorded at least one hit. But South Carolina got production Saturday from spots it hasn’t otherwise.
Belk, whose father played at Texas in the early 1990s, finished his day 4-for-5 at the plate. It was his clocked solo home run shortly after Faltine’s long ball to the exact same part of ballpark that pulled the Gamecocks back within a pair of runs in the fifth inning.
While South Carolina’s much-maligned offense kept it within striking distance on Saturday, it was Texas super-slugger Ivan Melendez who swung the door shut.
Despite the wind whipping in toward home plate, Melendez obliterated a first-inning offering from Hall off the top of the batter’s eye in center field for a two-run shot. The El Paso, Texas, native drubbed his second homer of the day — a two-run shot that narrowly missed clearing the visiting bullpen in left-center field — in the eighth inning to give the Longhorns some added breathing room.
“We play well enough on most days that if we can get our pitching back in order,” Kingston explained, “that’s a team that can win games.”
South Carolina looked listless in its loss to a 3-9 Xavier team on Tuesday. On Saturday, though, the Gamecocks showed signs of life against the nation’s top-ranked team.
It wasn’t enough. Melendez made sure of that. But with Sanders still to pitch in Sunday’s doubleheader, South Carolina will have its chances to turn those Longhorn-directed jeers into garnet and black-infused cheers.
USC-Texas Games 2 and 3, Sunday
Where: Founders Park, Columbia
When: Doubleheader starts at 1:30 p.m. (7-inning game followed by a 9-inning game)
Watch: Streaming on SEC Network Plus
Weather: Sunny, high near 55 degrees
This story was originally published March 12, 2022 at 4:31 PM.
