Skid continues: Vols shut out South Carolina baseball in Game 1 of final SEC series
Postseason baseball might not be played in Columbia, after all. Not with the way No. 13 South Carolina is finishing out its season.
Riding three consecutive SEC series losses, the Gamecocks (37-16, 15-12 SEC) opened their final series of the season against No. 18 Tennessee with a 5-0 dud on Friday night. The shutout loss was the first of the season for USC.
“Tough night,” head coach Mark Kingston said. “As I told (the team), I’m still waiting for all three phases to show up on the same night. It hasn’t happened in a while. And I challenge them to make sure that happens tomorrow.”
The familiar problems that have plagued USC through its rough month persisted Friday — poor starting pitching and a lack of competitive at-bats.
Starter Eli Jones — replacing struggling ace Will Sanders — threw a laborious 80 pitches in four innings and gave up four runs on seven hits to a relentless Tennessee offense. Buoyed by a two-run home run by outfielder Dylan Dreiling, the Volunteers (37-17, 15-13) put up three runs against Jones in the fourth and never looked back.
The USC batting order mustered very little against Tennessee right-hander Andrew Lindsey, who touched 94 mph with his heavy sinking fastball. Using his sinker and pairing it with a cutter, Lindsey worked in on the hands of USC’s hitters and elicited awkward swings all night. Two of the Gamecocks’ three hits against Lindsey were infield singles, and the other was a bloop single off of a jammed swing by Gavin Casas.
Starting at the end of the third, Lindsey retired 17 Gamecocks in a row to finish his outing. He recorded those outs economically, as he threw just 103 pitches in 8.1 innings, striking out five and walking none. The start was reminiscent to Game 3 in Arkansas last weekend, when Hogs starter Hunter Hollan sealed the series with a one-run complete-game outing.
“He only had five strikeouts, but he was just off the barrel all night,” Kingston said. “It was just a lot of movement.”
After losing to visiting Charlotte earlier in the week, the Gamecocks have now gone 3-10 since their season high-water mark of sweeping then-No. 3 Florida in Columbia. After ranking as high as No. 3 in the country and projecting as a No. 3 national seed, the Gamecocks have slipped outside of the national seed conversation and are danger of losing a hosting nod if they drop the Tennessee series.
USC still ranks No. 5 in RPI and No. 6 in strength of schedule nationally, but four consecutive SEC series losses to end the season could raise red flags with the NCAA Tournament selection committee.
Due to weather concerns, the Gamecocks and Volunteers will finish their series with two seven-inning games on Saturday, starting at 2 p.m. and with the second game starting 45 minutes after the first.
USC remaining schedule
Saturday: 7-inning doubleheader vs. Tennessee, 2 p.m. (both games on SEC Network)
May 23-28: SEC tournament in Hoover, Alabama
Regional hosts announced: evening of Sunday, May 28
NCAA selection show: noon Monday, May 29 on ESPN2
This story was originally published May 19, 2023 at 9:42 PM.
