Rough weekend continues for South Carolina after 'embarassing' run-rule loss

Paul Mainieri doesn’t like using the word “embarrassed” to describe a loss. But after the way things unraveled on Friday, he had nothing else to say but that.

“Tonight was embarrassing for us and for our school,” Mainieri told GamecockCentral.

After losing in walk-off fashion 24 hours earlier, South Carolina didn’t put up much of a fight in a 17-0 loss to Texas A&M. With this game ending after seven innings, the Gamecocks (20-16, 2-12 SEC) have now been run-ruled twice since SEC play started.

“Was there a game here tonight?” Mainieri said. “I don’t know. I don’t think we really showed up for it.”

Almost immediately, the game started to get out of hand as South Carolina’s first-inning pitching woes continued. After the Aggies had the bases loaded and one out, Matthew Becker gave up four runs, putting the offense behind in an early hole.

As a pitching staff, the Gamecocks have given up 23 runs in the first inning since SEC play began. They are now 1-6 when the other team has scored first in seven of those games.

“They’ve got to throw the ball over the plate. You don’t throw the ball over the plate, there’s no defense against the base on balls,” Mainieri said. “I don’t know what to say. It was just very poor on our part.”

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Becker didn’t last long as he only made it through three innings and surrendered six runs on four hits. He struck out five and walked one. His biggest issue, though, was the three hit-by-pitches he had.

Even when the left-hander exited, things only got worse for the pitchers who came into the game. Cooper Parks had a rough night locating his pitches as he walked five batters, which led to five runs scoring in one inning of work.

It reached a point where Mainieri took him out after he loaded the bases to open the fifth. He brought in Roman Kimball in hopes that he could potentially do his best to limit the damage. But with the way Texas A&M was hitting, it was nothing more than feeding Kimball, who hadn’t pitched since March 22, to the wolves.

In an inning where the Aggies plated seven runs on three hits, Kimball was only charged with four earned runs as the first three went to Parks. Kimball’s came when he gave up a two-out, two-strike grand slam to Bear Harrison, who drove in seven runs on Friday.

The pitching as a whole allowed 15 earned runs, 17 total, on 10 hits with seven strikeouts and eight walks. As bad as things were on the mound, Mainieri was also critical of the catching with Ryan Bakes behind the plate. There were two wild pitches, both from Kimball, which brought home two runs as a result.

“To be honest with you, our catching was poor as well,” Mainieri said. “We were all over the place. We had balls going to the backstop, and we just got in a big hole right away.”

Offensively, the Gamecocks only had five hits and couldn’t string together anything against A&M left-hander Justin Lamkin. He pitched six shutout innings and gave up three hits with five strikeouts and one walk.

In the limited opportunities it had, South Carolina went 1-for-11 (.091) with runners on, 0-for-6 (.000) with runners in scoring position and 1-for-8 (.125) with two outs. It also struck out seven times and walked once.

Despite all that, Mainieri felt the numbers didn’t tell the whole story as he pointed out that a lot of balls were hit hard. The Aggies were just solid defensively.

“It’s never as good as it looks, and it’s never as bad as it looks,” he said. “It was just that we pitched so poorly tonight, and it just kind of took the wind out of our sails very early.”

Up next: South Carolina will wrap up its three-game series on Saturday, as the Aggies will go for the sweep. First pitch is at 3 p.m. on SEC Network Plus. Dylan Eskew (0-1, 1.77 ERA) will make his first start since March 16 as he returns from injury.

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