South Carolina picks up series victory over Milwaukee as Becker has another solid outing

As Matthew Becker struck out his eighth batter of the day for the first out in the seventh inning, Paul Mainieri made the slow walk out to the mound. In most cases, Mainieri would take the ball from his starter and let him walk off to an ovation from the crowd.

Becker didn’t move, though. Even after Mainieri met him at the mound, the left-hander stood there hoping his head coach might change his mind and let him finish what he started. But that was going to be it for his afternoon.

By the time Brandon Stone, first up in relief, trotted in from the bullpen, that was when Becker finally headed to the dugout with Mainieri walking beside him.

He received a nice hand from the crowd after pitching 6.1 strong innings in South Carolina’s 6-3 win over Milwaukee on Saturday. The Gamecocks (7-0) have now clinched their second-straight series victory to open the season.

“He might’ve pitched better today even than he pitched last week when he went five innings and only gave up one hit,” Mainieri said of Becker. “He was mixing his pitches and getting his curveball over. He was in complete command out there. The only reason I took him out was pitch count. It’s a long season.”

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Coming off his first outing where Becker pitched five shutout innings, he was solid once again on Saturday. He retired the first 10 batters of the game before giving up his first hit on a fly ball into right centerfield that Dalton Mashore couldn’t corral with the sun in his eyes. It ended up being a one-out double and led to Milwaukee driving home its first run one batter later.

Becker also gave up his first home run of the year, a solo shot into left field in the sixth. Besides that, he was in command for most of the day. He gave up two runs on three hits and struck out eight without a walk on 86 pitches, 63 of which were strikes.

“I feel like I had everything kind of working today,” Becker said. “Last week was just a lot of fastballs. Changeup worked well last week, curveball just kind of wasn’t there. I feel like I did a better job of mixing everything, landing the curveball, making them respect it. And really just made one mistake today.”

Becker received some early run support from his offense as South Carolina plated four runs in the second. The Gamecocks quickly loaded the bases with no outs before KJ Scobey drove in two with a single into center.

Jordan Carrion followed suit with his first hit as a Gamecock, an RBI single into right. In his first start of the season, the second baseman had a nice afternoon, finishing 2-for-3 at the plate.

“It was a blessing, honestly,” Carrion said on making his first start on Saturday. “It’s been a long time coming. … That was definitely great to be back out there.”

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In the sixth, the Gamecocks added another run thanks to Ethan Petry, who crushed his second homer of the year. It was a solo shot that traveled 409 feet at 110 miles per hour and hit high off the batter’s eye. For Petry, this was his 46th career home run at South Carolina, moving him into fourth place on the program’s all-time homer list.

Stone, who came in for Becker with one out in the seventh, pitched the rest of the way. The right-hander gave up a one-out solo homer in the ninth but pitched fine beyond that. He tossed 2.2 innings with a strikeout and walk to pick up his first save of the season.

Up next: South Carolina will look to remain unbeaten and go for the series sweep on Sunday. First pitch is at 1:30 p.m. on SEC Network Plus. Jake McCoy (1-0, 0.00 ERA) will get the start on the mound.

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