Gamecocks rally, hold on late to even series with Tigers

Tristan Smith made his first career start on Saturday, giving up no earned runs over 4.2 IP. (Merrell Mann photo)

by Brandon Rink - Staff Writer - Sat Mar 04 16:41:13 GMT-04:00 2023

GREENVILLE – Clemson baseball rode the ups and downs of a young pitching staff with a strong start and struggles late that saw a four-run lead evaporate against the rival South Carolina Gamecocks Saturday at Fluor Field in Greenville.

South Carolina (10-1) answered a four-run Clemson seventh inning with five of their own to key an 11-9 comeback win.

The Gamecocks, ranked as high as No. 23 nationally, snapped a five-game losing run in the series with the Tigers, while Clemson (5-5) dropped its fifth game in the last six this season.

A pitcher’s duel was broken up by the Tigers in the fifth inning.

Coming in with 17-straight scoreless frames this season, senior Gamecocks right-hander Noah Hall gave up three hits in a row for Clemson to attach a crooked number to the scoreboard first. Chad Fairey scored two on an RBI single there.

Hall then allowed another single and hit a batter to load the bases up, where Cooper Ingle brought another Tiger across the plate to go up 3-0.

Clemson freshman lefty Tristan Smith, who made his first career start, allowed only two hits through four innings, but he ran into trouble in the bottom half of the fifth, hitting two batters and walking another with two out to mark his day done.

Clemson head coach Erik Bakich went to another freshman with right-hander Joe Allen, and he got the Tigers out of the jam in an unconventional manner. Allen’s fourth delivery went wide right of Ingle’s glove and caromed off the wall, where Ingle picked it up and threw it back to Allen and got South Carolina’s Carson Hornung out at the plate.

South Carolina found its answer in the sixth, however, putting runners on the corners for right fielder Ethan Petry to send one to deep center and in-and-out of freshman center fielder Cam Cannarella’s glove on a jump to the wall to score one.

With freshman lefty Ethan Darden in, the bases were loaded by a walk and Gamecocks third baseman Talmadge LeCroy tied up the game with a single to left field. With an eighth Clemson walk or hit batter of the game, the bases were loaded up again for a new pitcher in Reed Garris, who induced a fielder’s choice at the plate and left fielder Will Taylor tracked down a hard-hit ball to Fluor Field’s mini-’Monster’ wall to keep the game tied.

To lead off the seventh inning, Fairey reached on a single and Riley Bertram beat out a throw on the infield with one out to put two Tigers on, and Ingle snuck a grounder through the infield to put Clemson back on top, heading to second on the errant throw home. With the bases loaded up, Blake Wright double down the right field line to score two. Another run crossed the plate from a failed throw at home on a hard-hit groundball. South Carolina reliever Matthew Becker (1-0) finished out the inning he gave up four earned runs in and ended up getting the winning decision.

Clemson’s pitching and fielding woes came back in the seventh, however, and previous Sunday starting pitcher Jay Dill (1-1) came in with the bases loaded and one out after a Gamecock had already scored. A sacrifice fly scored one and Dill’s 1-2 offering went deep to right field for a 3-run home run off of Hornung’s bat.

South Carolina added insurance with a Caleb Denny RBI double off the monster-like wall in left field, which followed a fourth Clemson hit batter of the day. Cole Messina then hit a towering two-run home run to the same section of the field.

"South Carolina's a very good team. Good teams when you give them opportunities like that...they've obviously got a dangerous offensive lineup and they showed why in the late innings," Bakich said. "Early on I thought it was a very well-pitched game by both Tristan Smith and Noah Hall. Both pitchers really doing a nice job of holding down two good teams really. So you didn't know through the first four innings that it was going to be a 20-run game, but I think that's a credit to how both those guys were throwing...

"(After the top of the seventh), I thought we were going to put it away and we had a chance to extend that four-run (lead) and didn't cash in with two runners in scoring position there. Could've opened it up to a larger margin and then really had trouble finding the strike zone in the bottom of the next frame. Credit to them, they took advantage...I felt like it was two heavyweight punchers trading blows and we ran out of time there at the end. That's obviously a quality opponent -- they've got a good team and they showed why and we unfortunately were on the short end of it tonight. It's going to be a great rubber match tomorrow and really looking forward to this finale."

Down to a last out, Taylor offered some hope in the top of the ninth with a two-run single after Wright walked and Cannarella doubled previously. Two more Tigers reached for Gavin Abrams, who hit a pinch-hit home run Friday for Clemson, but his grounder to second base sealed the defeat.

Cannarella notched a hit in a 10th consecutive game to start his young career with a single in the sixth, adding a stolen base and a double later.

Clemson dropped to 5-6 against the Gamecocks at Fluor Field.

The Tigers seek a seventh series win in the last nine on Sunday with a 1:30 p.m. start at Founders Park in Columbia.

With normal weekend starter Ryan Ammons out (forearm strain), Bakich said he wasn’t ready to announce a starter yet for Sunday.

"I got to see who's available," Bakich said. "I guess we'll find out. I'll talk to (pitching coach Jimmy) Belanger and see. We really sold out to try to win that game two here. We tried to throw the kitchen sink at them and unfortunately it didn't work out for us. Jay Dill has been our game three starter and we rolled the dice putting him there at the end. It didn't work out...Everyone's a candidate at this point with all the pitchers who are out. It's an all-hands-on-deck kind of approach. We have a number of pitchers out, but we won't make an excuse on that. Nobody cares. We'll definitely find out who's available and it will probably be after guys throw on short rest and we'll piece it together one way or another."