All-around rough afternoon ends with South Carolina getting swept by LSU

There isn’t much Monte Lee hasn’t experienced over his 25-year coaching career — until Sunday afternoon, when he watched a simple drag bunt turn into a double.

It’s hard to believe just because of how rarely it happens, but in the third inning, LSU’s Derek Curiel squared to bunt with two outs and somehow ended up on second base. Logan Sutter, making his first start of the weekend at second base, took a misstep to his left and got crossed up as the ball rolled past him into the outfield.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen one, to be honest with you,” Lee told GamecockCentral. “And that was kind of how our day went today and how it went this whole weekend.”

It was one of many mistakes made by South Carolina in a 7-0 loss to LSU at Alex Box Stadium. The Gamecocks (22-27, 7-17 SEC) have now lost four straight games after being swept in Baton Rouge.

“Quite honestly, we just didn’t do a good job in really any phase of the game,” Lee said. “We need to get back to the drawing board and figure some things out.”

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In total, South Carolina made three errors on Sunday, though it easily could’ve been more. And most of them, like Sutter’s, were avoidable. Earlier in the third, Talmadge LeCroy airmailed a throw into centerfield as William Patrick advanced to second base on a wild pitch.

Then in the fifth, KJ Scobey had a ground ball hit directly to him go off his glove and roll into left field. The struggles continued in the sixth, when Patrick Evans went to field a single in right field, but the ball slipped past him and rolled to the wall, allowing a runner to score all the way from first.

“There’s not a lot you can do when it comes to physical mistakes. You’ve just got to work on your defense. It’s really that simple,” Lee said. “When you look at areas of the game that you’re not doing a good enough job at, you’ve got to work on them more. In practice, we need to spend more time on defense.”

Mistakes like these aren’t anything new for South Carolina, which entered Sunday with the third-most errors in the SEC. But that was only part of a three-phase problem in the series finale. Once again, the offense did little to help the cause, managing just five hits in its second shutout loss of the week.

The Gamecocks had no answers for LSU right-hander Zac Cowan, a Blythewood, S.C., native, who delivered his best outing of the year, tossing a season-high six scoreless innings while striking out seven and walking one.

In total, South Carolina scored just four runs in four games this week.

“We’ve got to get some guys to catch fire. And we just don’t have that right now,” Lee said. “We don’t have anybody in our lineup that I’d say, ‘Man, he’s really putting together a lot of really good at-bats.’ Here and there, we’ve got a few guys that are doing a pretty good job of being competitive. But all in all, we don’t have enough guys, one through nine in the lineup that are on fire, that are putting together two, three, four quality at-bats in the game. That needs to change. That’s going to have to change.”

Alex Valentin worked through two scoreless innings before surrendering a long two-run homer to Omar Serna Jr., which broke the ice and gave LSU the lead in the third. Valentin lasted four innings, allowing three runs on four hits while striking out six and walking two. He threw 71 pitches before being pulled.

“I thought Valentin did a good job,” Lee said. “But once we got to the bullpen, we just didn’t do a good enough job of pounding the strike zone. But we also didn’t help our pitching staff with how we played defensively.”

South Carolina’s bullpen, which has been one of the few bright spots at times this year, allowed four runs after Valentin exited. Alex Philpott was the only one to really get hit hard as he gave up three runs on four hits over two innings. Josh Gregoire allowed one hit and struck out one in 1.1 innings.

By the sixth, with the Gamecocks already trailing by four runs, Lee could sense that the team’s body language “wasn’t great” and didn’t improve after that. It was a day where so much went wrong and just a bad weekend in general that essentially ended any at-large NCAA Tournament hopes.

With the losses piling up and an RPI sitting in the 100s, South Carolina has all but no margin left and will need to win five games in the SEC Tournament just to reach the postseason.

“These guys care, and if they’re not playing good and they’re not playing well, they’re going to be disappointed in themselves. So it’s tough,” Lee said. “But on the other hand, it’s our job as coaches and the responsibility of players, we just got to keep showing up and playing. And if you do that, if you have that mindset, eventually you will break through and start playing better baseball.”

Up next: South Carolina will not have a midweek game this week and will open a three-game series with No. 24 Alabama on Friday. First pitch will be at 5:30 p.m. on SEC Network.

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