Late-game decisions prove costly as South Carolina drops series to Tennessee
Mark Kingston rolled the dice and it backfired in the worst way possible.
Going into the sixth inning, Garrett Gainey was on a roll. He made his way through five shutout frames but his pitch count was rising and Tennessee was soon to have the lineup come up for a third time. He gave up a one-out homer to Christian Moore to give Tennessee some life.
The signs were there that the end was near.
After getting the second out, Gainey proceeded to give up back-to-back singles. Sitting at 88 pitches, he had never gone this long before. But rather than pull him, Kingston left him in. And he paid the price.
On his 93rd pitch of the night, Gainey served up a go-ahead three-run homer to Hunter Ensley to end what was a strong outing. But instead, it gave Tennessee the lead for the rest of the game, as the No. 1 Vols picked up an 8-3 win over the No. 24 Gamecocks on Friday.
“Those were his runners and I felt like he deserved to pitch his way out of it,” head coach Mark Kingston said. “He actually made a good pitch. That was going to be his last hitter. And he was still (throwing) 94. He knew that was his last hitter. He was able to reach back and he was 94 that entire at-bat. He made some great pitches. The guy took a great swing on a tough pitch up and in the zone. And you know what? You’ve got to tip your cap. Garrett Gainey’s our best pitcher and he deserved to be in that moment.”
South Carolina (33-20, 13-16 SEC) will officially finish under .500 in SEC play for the first time since 2022. It has now lost five straight games.
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Gainey did all he could. He made it through 5.2 innings as he racked up five strikeouts without a walk. But because he was left in too long, he ended up giving up four runs on seven hits and took the loss.
While the move to leave him in was questionable to say the least, the offense didn’t do much to help. Despite scoring three runs on two errors in the second, the Gamecocks couldn’t do more against Vols starter Drew Beam. And after a two-out single in the fifth, they wouldn’t get another hit.
“We hit the ball hard all night. I don’t know how many balls we hit hard, we had a lot of barrels. We hit the ball hard all night,” Kingston said. “For only scoring three runs, I thought we swung the bats about as well as we possibly can against a high draft pick like that. So I have no problem with the way we swung the bats all night.”
Beam pitched six innings of three-run ball with only one earned run charged to his final line. He struck out four and walked two.
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Later in the seventh, South Carolina found itself in another tight jam. After Jake McCoy put two on with one out, Matt Williams came out to the mound to make a pitching change. Normally in a one-run game, Chris Veach would be the one to come in. But instead, it was Parker Marlatt coming in with Moore due up.
“We wanted Chris Veach to pitch the last three to six outs of that game. We’ve been getting deep in games with leads and blowing them. And we just wanted to make sure that a veteran would get the last three to six outs,” Kingston said.
“He was available, he was ready. But we wanted to save him for later in the game cause you’ve got to get 27 outs one way or another. And you need veterans that have gotten the last three outs, which are the hardest to get. So we wanted to save him for that.”
After walking Moore, Marlatt served up a grand slam to Blake Burke to bust it open and give the Vols an 8-3 lead. And that would be all she wrote.
“Well I mean, if it backfires, then yeah,” Kingston on if he regretted any bullpen decisions he made. “Monday morning quarterback is a real thing. If it doesn’t work out, you always wish you had done something different.”
Up next: South Carolina will try to salvage the series finale and avoid the sweep against Tennessee on Saturday. First pitch is at 1 p.m. on SEC Network Plus. The Gamecocks have yet to name a starting pitcher.
