Starting pitching continues to struggle as South Carolina drops series

What started as a weekend filled with a goal of solidifying a case to host a regional has turned out to be anything but that.

For the second straight night, South Carolina’s pitching, at least in the early going, was no match for Georgia’s offense. The No. 13 Gamecocks have now dropped the weekend series, losing 11-5 to the Bulldogs on Friday.

Things are becoming incredibly dire for this team. With four games to go, South Carolina (33-17, 13-13 SEC) will have to find a way to string together a few wins to have any chance at having postseason baseball in Columbia. But that’s becoming less likely after a series loss.

“This team will bounce back, it always does,” head coach Mark Kingston said. “That’s why we’re in such a good position from an RPI standpoint cause we always flush whatever happened today and come out ready to play, especially in game threes all year. I expect nothing different tomorrow.”

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At one point, South Carolina led first in this game, taking a 1-0 lead on a Cole Messina RBI double in the first inning. And on the mound, Eli Jones worked through two scoreless innings and showed signs that maybe he would return to form.

But with two outs in the third, Jones served up a single into left off the bat of Charlie Condon. At the time, it seemed like a harmless hit to college baseball’s best player. However, it set off a chain reaction that turned the game upside down.

The Dawgs would go on to score five runs in the inning, all coming with two outs. Just when it seemed like Jones might be back on the right track, his outing was done after three innings of work.

“Look, Eli’s got to be better. He has been better in the past and we need him to be better,” Kingston said. “Again, nobody works harder than Eli, nobody wants it more than Eli, but he’s just not as good right now as he was earlier in the season. And we need him to be. We have his back. We’ll continue to give him opportunities, but we need better from Eli. He knows that, we know that. And we have his back through that. But we need more production there.”

Jones would leave the game with runners on the corners and no outs in the fourth. This is the third straight outing in which the right-hander has looked out of sorts. And for South Carolina, it’s now a real concern as the starting rotation has continued to struggle weekend after weekend.

“The stuff’s just not as good as it was early in the season — it’s just not,” Kingston said on Jones. “We’ve got to find a way to get it back to where it was early in the season cause it’s just not there right now.”

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Things would only get worse as Connor McCreery came in to pitch. He would only record one out and give up two runs on one hit. Since he inherited two runners, Jones’ final line became seven earned runs on 10 hits with two strikeouts. By the middle of the fourth, Georgia was now leading 10-1.

After that, the bullpen actually did fairly well. Jake McCoy, Tyler Pitzer and Matthew Becker combined to go 5.2 innings of one-run ball. McCoy and Pitzer were the main standouts, each working more than two innings in their outings. They combined to hold the Dawgs to four hits.

“McCoy, Pitzer, Becker, we did a really good job,” Kingston said. “We just fell behind early and made it hard on us. But guys kept playing hard, had good approaches. Just got to flush it.”

Almost exactly like Thursday, South Carolina started to chip away and put some runs on the board. It started with Dalton Reeves who hit a long solo homer into right in the fourth. He homered for the second time in the sixth, near the 380 foot sign in deep right centerfield. Then, Will Tippett, who hadn’t played since April 19, crushed a two-run homer into left in his first at-bat back.

However, would be about as close as the Gamecocks got. Georgia held them scoreless the rest of the night. South Carolina finished 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and struck out 13 times.

Up next: South Carolina will look to salvage the series finale and avoid the sweep on Saturday. First pitch is at 2 p.m. on SEC Network Plus. The Gamecocks have yet to name a starting pitcher.

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