Gearing up to travel to the Raleigh Regional, South Carolina head coach Mark Kingston addressed the success on the mound in the SEC Tournament. In addition, Kingston spoke on how his pitching plans could possibly change to adapt to new teams and bats.
“We need to look at it,” Kingston said. “A lot of it has to do with matchups and is it a right-handed team, a left-handed team? We’ll look at all those things. And we’ll make the decisions we feel like give us the best chance to win each game.”
[GamecockCentral for $1: In-depth coverage and a great community]
South Carolina’s bullpen and pitching depth helped it put together a good 3-2 run in Hoover. As a strong cohesive group of arms, the Gamecocks advanced to the semifinals.
It was really what the team needed. To have a five-game stretch where they would have to count on more than just the regular bullpen arms. And that should serve them well heading into this weekend.
“Well, certainly, I mean, we pitched much better this past week now. And there’s a lot of factors that go into that. It’s who you’re playing, when you’re playing. It’s where you’re playing them, it’s how are your guys performing,” Kingston said. “But I thought our pitchers reacted and bounced back very well. As much as the ball was flying on Hoover, we set an all-time record for home runs out there.”
[On3 App: Get South Carolina push notifications from GamecockCentral]
Although there were ups and downs, the bullpen and starters were fairly consistent all weekend and were able to stop many talented SEC batters.
“The LSU games, obviously, we didn’t pitch as well as we wanted, but defense had something to do with that. But in the other games, I thought we picked pretty damn well,” Kingston said. “And if we pitch well, we’re obviously scoring runs right now in a manner that can win a lot of games.”
Parker Marlatt has been a solid addition to South Carolina’s bullpen in his first season. After getting roughed up in Knoxville a few weeks back, the young arm threw six strikeouts giving up just one run in 3.2 innings against Kentucky.
Meanwhile, after seeing limited mound time as a Gamecock, Sam Simpson pitched two innings against LSU. During his appearance, Simpson had two strikeouts and gave up just one hit and one run.
“It was nice to see Roman Kimball throw well. Sam Simpson, Parker Marlatt, the games that I wasn’t catching I feel like those guys kind of stepped up,” catcher Cole Messina said. “It was good to see because now instead of the 9 or 10 guys, we have 11 or 12 guys maybe 13 who we can trust fully. So I thought it was good to see.”
In his start against LSU, Kimball threw 3.2 innings with two strikeouts and four earned runs. However, that final line doesn’t paint the whole picture as the right-hander was one out away from working through four scoreless frames. But a defensive mistake led to a six-run inning in an eventual 12-11 loss to the Tigers.
“I thought he was more composed, I thought he stayed within himself a lot more, kept his emotions down. It was good to see,” Messina said.
Discuss South Carolina baseball on The Insiders Forum!
The post How South Carolina’s SEC tourney pitching performance translates to the Raleigh Regional appeared first on On3.