Offense goes cold as South Carolina drops series to Arkansas

South Carolina built its offensive identity on working counts, using the entire field and chasing starting pitchers early. 

The Gamecocks didn’t do much of that at all in a lackluster offensive showing while dropping the series to Arkansas Sunday afternoon. 

South Carolina mustered just one base runner over the final six innings in a 5-1 loss while Arkansas starter Hunter Hollan pieced together a dominant complete game outing as the Gamecocks dropped their third straight series.

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“I thought at times we weren’t doing a good enough job letting the ball get deep and making sure we saw it and used the opposite field. The one guy who did that for us today, Cole Messina, had a great day,” Mark Kingston said. 

“We just didn’t have enough guys committed to using the whole field. That’s what I told them after the game. We need to be the kind of offense that uses the whole field. We were a little too pull-happy today and he took advantage of that.”

Messina had two of South Carolina’s five hits on the day, including a double in the second inning. But the rest of the offense couldn’t do much of anything to chase Hollan, who racked up 11 strikeouts to just one walk. 

The Gamecocks (37-14, 15-11 SEC) had their chances early but couldn’t make it happen. South Carolina put runners on the corners with no one out but a pop-up to first and a double play ended the threat. 

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After Will Tippett led the third off with a solo homer, the Gamecocks got two runners on base with one away. But Messina and Ethan Petry both struck out looking in wasted at-bats with runners on base.

Arkansas tied the game in the next half inning while Hollan would go on to retire 19 straight. A two-out Messina single in the ninth inning was South Carolina’s lone base runner over the final six innings.

“It’s one of those games. You have to give him credit. We had him on the ropes early and he wiggled out of it. He settled in,” Kingston said. “Lefites are known to do that in our games. If you don’t get them out early when they’re on the ropes they can settle in. he settled in today.”

It burned what was yet another solid start for the Gamecocks on the mound with Matthew Becker allowing one run over his first four innings before hitting trouble. 

Becker gave up three straight hits to start the fifth, including a two-run single to break a 1-1 tie. 

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“I think I had him two strikes and had to bury the third one,” Becker said. “I didn’t really get it down enough.” 

Four of the six hits Becker allowed Sunday were to right-handers. He struck out seven, five of those to left-handed hitters. Becker just left a few too many mistake pitches up in the zone, he said.

“I don’t really like lefties but we’ve been working with coach Parker and been working to get better to get lefties out,” Becker said. “I feel like I executed well but I caught some bad breaks.”

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He pitched well enough to win, allowing four runs–including while one run scored after he left the game. He finished with no walks and seven strikeouts over 5.2 innings. 

“Becker gave us a really good outing. I thought all three starters for us this weekend gave us what we need,” Kingston said.

“I told the team afterward the last couple weeks we weren’t pitching or playing defense or hitting at the level that needs to be done to get where we want to go at the end of the season. This weekend I thought our pitching and defense was at the level it needs to be. Now we just need to get our hitting going.”

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