South Carolina comes from behind with a three-run seventh to snatch victory from Charleston

Paul Mainieri isn’t a huge fan of seeing his team take walks. He feels the games get boring when that happens. If he could restart the count for any batter who walked, he’d probably do it.

Mainieri would rather see South Carolina swing the bats and fire up the crowd, akin to Earl Weaver’s love affair with the three-run homer. The first-year head coach said his players make fun of him for it, but that’s just his style.

His desire not to walk has its drawbacks, though. Through the first six innings Tuesday, the Gamecocks couldn’t work the count and swung at a lot of early pitches, resulting in one run.

But in the seventh, that entire philosophy seemingly took a backseat. Instead of attacking early, the hitters were patient, and it paid dividends. Trailing by two, South Carolina (17-5, 1-2 SEC) fought back to take the lead in a come-from-behind 4-3 win over Charleston at Segra Park.

“I like to teach you guys to hit, but if they’re gonna give it to you, you gotta take it,” Mainieri said. “You know, at that point, I’d take the runs anyway. They were willing to give them to us.”

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All three runs in the seventh came with two outs. Kennedy Jones, pinch-hitting for Jase Woita, took a 3-1 pitch outside to bring home the first run. Then, after getting squeezed on a 3-1 pitch up high, Dalton Mashore delivered the game-tying run with another walk. The Gamecocks didn’t even have to do anything for the go-ahead run since Cougars pitcher Hayden Thomas balked to send home the runner from third.

It wasn’t a strong night for the offense. South Carolina only recorded seven hits and walked five times. It went 2-for-15 (.133) with runners on and 1-for-9 (.111) with runners in scoring position. In that one inning, though, Mainieri felt the hitters “showed a lot of discipline at the plate.”

In the half-inning prior, things looked to be on the verge of falling apart. Jarvis Evans Jr. had been cruising right along as he retired the side in order in the sixth inning. Having thrown 84 pitches, the left-hander could’ve been brought back out for the seventh. But Mainieri decided it was time to turn things over to his bullpen.

It didn’t take long before that decision quickly backfired. Even though Mainieri had Ryder Garino warming up at multiple points on Tuesday, he decided to go with Zach Russell. And after he quickly got into a jam, the first-year head coach went to left-hander Aydin Palmer, who gave up a two-run single to Charleston’s Schley Gordy.

At last, Mainieri called on Garino for his third pitching change of the inning. The freshman right-hander came into a near-impossible spot to get out of with runners on the corners and nobody out. Miraculously though, he worked through it without allowing any additional runs and struck out three.

“Coach (Terry) Rooney told me when I got back from winter break that I’m not a freshman no more,” Garino said. “So I go out there with that mentality.”

Garino got the next two outs in the eighth before Mainieri made another move. He went with Parker Marlatt in hopes he could get the final four outs, now pitching with the lead. After allowing a single to the first batter he faced, Marlatt retired the final four batters of the night to earn the save.

Between Garino and Marlatt, they managed to get the final nine outs of the night, all while clinging to a late one-run lead. They combined to strike out seven and only walked one with no runs.

“It’s just anybody. Anybody we got,” Garino said. “We can go down our whole pitching staff. I mean, anybody could’ve done that and got those outs.”

Up next: South Carolina will travel to Fayetteville to take on No. 3 Arkansas in its first SEC road series of the season. The series begins Friday with first pitch at 7:30 p.m. on SEC Network Plus.

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