Clemson sweeps South Carolina as offensive woes continue

For a brief moment, South Carolina’s offense had a pulse. But it only took one pitch to erase any hope it had of coming back to life.

After being held scoreless through seven innings, the Gamecocks had a rally going when Jase Woita came through with an RBI single with one out. On the next pitch, Nolan Nawrocki hit into what looked to be a routine double play. But the throw from second base went wide and kept the inning alive.

That was until Woita was called for interference as he slid into second, resulting in the throwing error. After the umpires took some time to review the call, they put another run on the board for South Carolina, but it ended what was shaping up to be a potential comeback effort.

Aside from this sequence of offense, it was another rough day at the plate for the Gamecocks (9-3) as they suffered an 8-2 loss to No. 13 Clemson at Founders Park on Sunday.

The Tigers have now swept the season series for the third time in the last four seasons. The Gamecocks have now lost their last five games to their in-state rival, with their most recent win coming on March 5, 2023.

“I know how much it means to South Carolina people, South Carolina fans,” head coach Paul Mainieri said. “I feel bad that we didn’t come through for them. But there’s nothing we can do about it at this point, except for keep improving and working on the things we need to work on.”

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Mainieri, who was open about the Gamecocks’ offensive struggles after Saturday’s 5-1 loss, put out a new-looking lineup for Sunday’s series finale. In total, four new starters were inserted in the hope it would make a difference.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter how many changes there were to the lineup. Slumps are slumps. And they don’t just magically go away.

Facing Clemson left-hander Justin LeGuernic, who entered Sunday’s game with an 8.22 ERA, stifled South Carolina’s offense through four innings of work. He only allowed two singles and struck out six with one walk.

No matter who the Tigers put on the mound on Sunday, the Gamecocks’ struggles at the plate were contagious. They struck out 15 times and only walked twice. In each of the three games, they only recorded five hits apiece to finish with 15 overall.

“You give some credit to the other teams’ pitching, but you can’t give too much credit,” Mainieri said. “I mean, you’re going to face good pitching; you just got to rise up and do it. It’s one of those things in the sport of baseball that’s hard to figure sometimes, but we do need to get more base runners, too. I don’t know how many base runners we had tonight, but it didn’t seem like we had a lot.”

South Carolina went 4-for-33 with runners on, 2-for-22 with runners in scoring position, and 4-for-28 with two outs. It only scored runs in three of the 27 innings played and plated six runs over that stretch.

“We just got to get more out of each guy,” Mainieri said. “We got to get runners on base, we got to get them over, and then we got to figure out a way to get them in too.”

As a result, the offense wasted another strong outing from the pitching staff, as Dylan Eskew pitched six innings of one-run ball in his third start of the season. The only run Eskew gave up came in the fifth on an RBI single by Jarren Purify. But right before that, Nolan Nawrocki tried to make a diving stop on a ground ball hit his way, and it ended up kicking off his leg and went into the outfield. This put runners on the corners with no outs and put Eskew in a near-impossible situation to get out of unscathed.

Given the circumstances, only allowing one run was seen as a big win. The right-hander was otherwise as good as he could have been, striking out seven with four walks and three hits.

Eskew, who had suffered a mild strain in his back in his previous start, was moved back from Friday to Sunday in the weekend rotation with the goal of him being ready to return without missing any time.

“It was no problem today,” Eskew said. “Last week, it kind of started in catch play. Once we got through catch play and pregame bullpen, a 1-2-3 fourth inning, it was kind of the sits where it was getting tight on me last week. So just keeping the hot pack on it, massaging it on it kept it loose all game.”

As good as Eskew was, though, the relievers who came in afterward couldn’t find the same success. The bullpen, which had been a bright spot for the Gamecocks, surrendered seven runs over the final three innings to allow Clemson to break it open.

Up next: South Carolina will play two midweek games this week, starting with Davidson at home on Tuesday. First pitch is at 6:30 p.m. on SEC Network Plus.

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