Gamecock offense ignites in victories over Mississippi State
For South Carolina third baseman LB Dantzler, it’s no secret that he hasn’t been hitting the way he wants to be, but entering the Mississippi State series, the entire team was frustrated.
“I think we kind of got tired of having the pitchers carry the team for so long,” Dantzler said.
After losing to Francis Marion, a Division II program, the Gamecocks rebounded with a sweep of MSU, with scores of 7-6, 5-3 and 6-4, respectively, as USC put together one of its best offensive outings of SEC play.
Throughout the SEC season, USC coach Ray Tanner has harped on his offense becoming more aggressive, especially deep in the count. Trailing 6-3 in the bottom of the eighth inning Friday night with two outs, the Gamecocks (27-10, 8-7 SEC) scored four unanswered runs to take the first game of the series.
The Gamecocks carried the two-out magic into Saturday’s game, scoring their first five runs with two outs already on the scoreboard.
“I think everybody’s just seeing the ball,” said left fielder Tanner English. “Some people are struggling and others are picking people up. We’re really working on our two-strike approach with (assistant coach Chad) Holbrook. That’s helping us see the ball late and see it deep and just get it in play.”
The Gamecocks have been able to lean on strong starting pitching, but with ace Michael Roth giving up five runs in his start Friday, the offense lifted the pitching. With freshman pitcher Jordan Montgomery making his second SEC start of his career on Saturday, the Bulldogs were kept at bay until the top of the seventh when Trey Porter hit a solo home run.
For both Roth and Montgomery, Tanner said the change-up had not been working for them as much as they would like, but Roth was particularly hard on himself after his outing, though he entered the game with an ERA under two.
“It’s on me,” Roth said. “Honestly, do I know what’s going on? No. I have no clue. I’ve watched video, been looking at some stuff and I haven’t had a good change-up in about four weeks, not spotting the fast ball, the slider was almost nonexistent, not getting lefties out, so I’m not discrediting their hitters at all, but I just haven’t really put together a good outing in a while, and I have no clue what’s going on.”
With the bullpen taxed through the first two games, USC needed Sunday’s starter, pitcher Colby Holmes, to go deep into his outing. He delivered his season-long, pitching for 8.1 innings, allowing just eight hits and four earned runs, while not walking a batter and striking three out.
Holmes’ performance was perhaps overshadowed by two arguable calls by the umpires. In the bottom of the fourth, right fielder Adam Matthews was ruled out after he ran back to first on a fly ball because the hit-and-run was on. In next half-inning, with a runner on third, Holmes scooped up MSU’s Tyler Fullerton’s infield hit, tossing it home, but the umpire ruled the runner safe.
Tanner went out to argue the call with the umpire, but with his team having already secured the series win, he considered getting ejected to see how his young squad would respond.
“I don’t do this very often,” Tanner said. “I know we had a close play at first, and I didn’t go out. When I went to home plate, it crossed my mind that this might be a good opportunity for me to exit stage left.”
Tanner said he didn’t want to be ejected because he was angry at the umpire, but because he wanted to see how the team would do without him. The Gamecocks responded without Tanner being ejected, scoring three runs in the bottom of the inning to reclaim the lead. After the game, center fielder Evan Marzilli said that the team knows “Coach has our back,” but it had more to do with capitalizing on opportunities that USC hadn’t cashed in on earlier in the game.
Such has been the story of USC’s season, as the Gamecocks had stranded 111 runners in SEC play before the MSU series, bringing that number to 135 after the series, but just as Tanner had the team’s back in the game, he’s said throughout the year that his team hasn’t played as well as it could. Now, that South Carolina is above .500 in SEC play for the first time this season, the team is believing that it’s starting to play to its full potential.
“We’re definitely not a finished product, but we’re definitely starting to figure it out,” Dantzler said. “We’ve got a lot of new guys and at the beginning of the year, we were just getting some games under our belt.”