Mark Kingston: 'We are a much better ball club in all areas than we were five weeks ago'
Fall baseball is coming to a close with one more inter-squad scrimmage left to go. South Carolina has been going at it since the beginning of last month. During that time, head coach Mark Kingston has seen a lot of growth in his team.
“We are a much better ball club in all areas than we were five weeks ago, and that’s what you want to see,” Kingston said. “It comes down to guys coming into the park every day to work hard and improve and the entire coaching staff working to figure out how we can get them better.”
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For Kingston, that’s all he can ask for. By the time Opening Day rolls around, his players will be in a much different spot than they are now. But a lot of them have made strides since the beginning of the fall.
“Will Tippett is a much better player than last year. Jonathan French is a much better player than he was last year. Ethan Petry last fall had no homers, or maybe he had one homer in the World Series, now he’s either got five or six,” Kingston said. “There’s a lot of guys that have gotten better and that’s what you want to see. Again, you want to improve the new guys in your program and hope that your environment is challenging them. But it’s really nice to see your returning players continuing to get better and know that they can have an even bigger impact than they had last year.”
Through this fall, the offense has hit a ton of home runs, something it did well with last year. It gives Kingston a lot of hope that things can continue to progress in 2024.
“Offensively, we’ve hit more homers in almost less than half the at-bats we did last fall,” he said. “So I think obviously we were a really good power team last year. I think we have a chance to be ahead of that pace. We’re further ahead than we were at this time last year.”
Monte Lee and Joey Holcomb, who have been working together with the hitters, have had a lot to do with those improvements. Kingston said their partnership has gone “very well” so far.
“Obviously, Monte does a really nice job with the hitters. Joey’s expertise is his hitting. And actually, there are some areas Monte is trying to get up to speed with in terms of a lot of the analytics, a lot of things. He’s a little younger so he’s a little bit more up to speed on some of those things. So, I think those two together have been very, very good for our hitters,” Kingston said.
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But it’s not just the hitting where the progress is taking place. South Carolina has used a lot of arms to get an evaluation of who slots in on the pitching staff. The Gamecocks lost a lot of good talent from last year’s staff, making it all the more important to find the right guys to step up.
“From a pitching standpoint, we’ve got a lot of really good arms. I’m pleased for the most part with everything I’ve seen,” Kingston said. “I’ve seen a lot of good progress out of our pitchers but also out of our hitters in terms of young guys, the new guys, but also some returners that have really gotten a lot better.”
South Carolina is back at Founders Park one more time for Game 2 of the Garnet and Black World Series. First pitch is at 5:30 p.m on Friday. The game is free for fans to attend.
