South Carolina's offensive slump continues as LSU finishes off doubleheader sweep

In the midst of South Carolina going through a brutal 0-for-21 stretch at the plate Saturday night, interim head coach Monte Lee didn’t say much. He had already said what he needed to say before the game.

“I really tried to give them everything I could give them in between games to get them ready for this game,” Lee told GamecockCentral. “It didn’t work, but that’s just part of it.”

After scoring one run just hours earlier, Lee’s message to the players was to “keep pressing, keep working, keep fighting.” But words alone weren’t enough to suddenly fix the season-long offensive inconsistencies, as the Gamecocks fell 7-3 to LSU in the second game of a doubleheader.

South Carolina (22-26, 7-16 SEC) struck first for the second time in the day, as Tyler Bak launched a solo home run into left field on the fifth pitch of the game.

“I was just hunting fastball, honestly — fastball away,” Bak told GamecockCentral. “That’s my strength. I was hunting it.”

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It would be almost seven full innings until the offense recorded another hit as LSU right-hander Marcos Paz kept the bats in check. Making just his fourth career start, the freshman pitched a season-long five innings. He struck out a career-high eight batters, nearly a third of his season total entering Saturday.

“Early in the ballgame, he had trouble commanding his fastball, so he threw his cutter a lot for a strike, and then once he found his fastball again, he started throwing his fastball,” Lee said. “So he kind of kept us guessing. He really just threw what he could command. And look, he’s got a really good arm, and he threw the ball over the plate today. We just didn’t square up enough balls and get enough runners on base to give ourselves a chance.”

The Gamecocks didn’t get their next hit until Will Craddock reached on an infield single with two outs in the eighth. They finished with four hits on the night, and their only other runs came in the ninth, when Jake Randolph drove in one on an RBI single before Erik Parker later scored on a wild pitch.

Those runs were largely insignificant as they didn’t change the fact that South Carolina’s offense has had a rough week, scoring just four runs in its last three games. After scoring 24 runs last weekend against Kentucky, Lee described it as being “frustrating” for not just the players but for him as well.

“We’ll go three games in a row where we swing the bat well, and then we’ll have two or three games in a row where we don’t,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’ve just got to find a way to be more consistent. Unfortunately for us today, we just couldn’t find it.”

Brandon Stone allowed four runs on eight hits over 4.1 innings, striking out one and walking one. After LSU’s first two runs came on sacrifice flies, nine-hole hitter Tanner Reaves drew a leadoff walk in the fifth. That quickly turned into more damage, as Mason Braun followed with a two-run homer into right, sparking a three-run inning for the Tigers.

“He made some mistakes in two-strike counts. That was honestly the difference. I probably should have went to the bullpen when we got the third time through the order, when (Braun) hit the home run,” Lee said. “Probably should have went to (Logan) Prisco there, but I was trying to give him some wiggle room to see if he could get himself out of it after the leadoff man reached base. But I thought he threw the ball fine. He just left some balls up in two-strike counts and gave up some hits in two-strike counts that I’m sure he wished he could have executed those pitches a little bit better.”

Up next: South Carolina will look to salvage the series and avoid the sweep Sunday afternoon. First pitch will be at 3 p.m. on SEC Network+. Alex Valentin (1-2, 4.46 ERA) will get the start on the mound.

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