South Carolina drops SEC opener to Oklahoma

South Carolina’s offense is what it is. It’s not a lineup that hits for much power, which, in a league like the SEC where most teams have pop, can be an issue.

“If you watch our batting practice, we don’t lose a lot of baseballs in batting practice,” head coach Paul Mainieri said. “So they’re not going to all of a sudden step in the game and start hitting five, six home runs in a game.”

Through 19 games, the Gamecocks have only hit 19 home runs, fifth-fewest in the SEC. And on a night where they hit none and No. 12 Oklahoma crushed three solo shots, it made a difference as they fell 8-5 in their SEC series opener on Friday.

Despite having 12 hits in the game, only one of them went for extra bases. South Carolina (15-4, 0-1 SEC) kept up with the Sooners in most offensive categories. But the lack of consistent run-scoring was a big blow.

Facing Oklahoma right-hander Kyson Witherspoon, the Gamecocks only plated one run through five innings. Then, in the sixth, after putting two on with one out and forcing the Sooners’ starter out of the game, the bats woke up and drove in four runs in their next five at-bats.

After cutting a six-run deficit down to two, that would be as close as they’d come to getting back in the game. Oklahoma’s late-inning relievers, Jason Bodin and Dylan Crooks, combined to go 3.1 shutout innings the rest of the way.

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Five starters had multi-hit games, with KJ Scobey leading the way with a three-hit night. Nathan Hall, Ethan Petry, Talmadge LeCroy and Henry Kaczmar each had two hits. But South Carolina also grounded into three double plays, the last two coming in the seventh and eighth.

“I thought our whole team was up there really taking some good rips at the ball,” Mainieri said. “We just weren’t squaring them up, which is hard to do when a guy is throwing 94 to 97 miles an hour; it’s hard to square that ball up. But it wasn’t for lack of aggressiveness and good rips up at the plate.”

While the offense couldn’t score consistently enough, it didn’t help falling into an immediate hole right out of the gate. Making his first start of the year, Brandon Stone surrendered four straight hits before recording the first out of the game, and by that point, Oklahoma already had three runs. The fourth came across on a should-have-been inning-ending double play after Evan Stone made a great diving catch in left field. His throw to the plate was on line, but the ball went in and out of LeCroy’s glove as he was trying to make the tag.

Once Stone got through the first-inning struggles, he settled in and tossed five innings. He only gave up one more run along the way, a long solo homer by nine-hole hitter Dasan Harris. Stone finished his night with three strikeouts but allowed five runs on seven hits and walked two.

“I’m not making excuses for (Stone), but this was kind of a crazy situation. I don’t think he got proper warm-up pitches,” Mainieri said. “He never threw a breaking ball in his warm-up pitches. All of a sudden, the game started, and I’m looking at, did he even get enough warm-up pitches?

“And he just didn’t seem like himself when the inning started. But outside of the fact that the ball was a little bit more elevated than normal, and he couldn’t get his breaking ball over.”

Even after Stone came out of the game, the Sooners continued to chip away and scored more runs to create the separation they needed. Two of their final three runs came on solo home runs.

“They’re tough. They’ve got a tough lineup,” Mainieri said. “A lot is made of their pitching, but they’ve got a bunch of scrappy hitters, too, and they’ve got a lot of speed.”

Up next: South Carolina will look to even the series up on Saturday afternoon. First pitch is at 4 p.m. on SEC Network Plus. Jake McCoy (1-1, 4.74 ERA) will make his fifth start of the year.

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