Jack’s takes from South Carolina’s 10-3 win over Florida

From the second at-bat of the game on, South Carolina never trailed. The Gamecocks, who hit three home runs on Friday, picked up a 10-3 win over No. 24 Florida in the series opener.

It’s just a huge win all around. The stakes are high with both teams in dire need of a series win this weekend. But it might be bigger for South Carolina, who has seen its season come to an end at the hands of the Gators the last two years.

Here are my takes from the win.

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Aggression early in the count pays off

For the most part, South Carolina likes to work the count and make a pitcher’s pitch count sky rocket. But with Florida right-hander Brandon Neely suspect to throwing a lot of strikes, a change to the approach was in order.

The goal was to take shorter, more compact swings, Mark Kingston said after the game. And the offense looked a lot better. The Gamecocks slugged three homers off Neely, who gave up five runs in 6.1 innings of work.

Then in the ninth inning, leading 5-3, South Carolina broke out for five runs to take a commanding lead. The Gamecocks were 6-for-17 with runners on and 5-for-13 with runners in scoring position. It was a huge difference from having just one hit with RISP a few days ago.

Eli Jones did what he had to do

Just one week earlier, Jones didn’t have his best stuff. He was hit around by a solid Texas A&M lineup and was knocked out of the game after 2.2 innings.

But baseball is a game where you need to have short-term memory. The good thing for Jones is that he would have a chance to bounce back against another good lineup in Florida. And he did what he had to do.

The right-hander tossed six innings of one-run ball on 76 pitches. He struck out six and walked two. He really did a great job of keeping the Gators in check as guys like Cade Kurland and Colby Shelton were hitless on the night. Even Jac Caglianone, who did homer later in the game, couldn’t get anything going off Jones.

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Another funky lineup works well

Here’s a look at the lineup Kingston put out for Friday’s game:

Cole Messina, C

Parker Noland, 2B

Ethan Petry, RF

Tyler Causey, DH

Kennedy Jones, LF

Dylan Brewer, CF

Talmadge LeCroy, 3B

Gavin Casas, 1B

Will Tippett, SS

First off, Messina hitting leadoff in his first game after going through concussion protocol was a wild move. But it worked out perfectly. Messina went 3-for-5 and set the tone for the rest of the order. Why did Kingston do it? He said it’s just the way the game is evolving. He compared it to power hitters in the MLB like Kyle Schawarber, Aaron Judge and Mike Trout hitting leadoff for their teams.

Outside of Causey and Brewer, everyone in the starting lineup had at least one hit. The 1-3 hole hitters combined for six hits, while the 7-9 hole hitters went 5-for-15 with two homers. That’s just about as good of a performance as you can ask for.

Florida hasn’t named a starting pitcher for Saturday’s game as of right now. Kevin O’Sullivan has a lot of options to work with, albeit not great ones. Right-hander Liam Peterson might be the guy to start as he’s been a regular in the weekend rotation. But his 7.88 ERA might say otherwise.

If Florida does send out another righty to the mound, I think South Carolina should stick with this same-look lineup. I really like Messina in the leadoff spot. Yeah, he’s not exactly fast or anything. But he doesn’t really need to be. He gets on base, which outweighs everything.

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