Weekend recap: Kentucky salvages game three but drops sixth straight series in SEC play

Kentucky scored five runs over the final two innings of Sunday's game against South Carolina in a 9-5 win to salvage the final game of the series. The Wildcats are now 9-12 in the SEC.

Despite the win – its first on a Sunday since March 15 – Kentucky has lost six consecutive series since sweeping Alabama to open SEC play. After five straight weekends of the series being decided in a rubber match, Kentucky dropped the first two on the road against the Gamecocks before Sunday's win.

Here are some observations from the weekend.

Had to have it on Sunday

Kentucky entered Sunday's game knowing how damaging another loss would be to its NCAA Tournament resume. With the final nine conference games coming against teams higher in the SEC standings, this was an important spot to stop the bleeding and keep a realistic shot at the 13-win mark that should put it in play for the NCAA Tournament.

Center fielder Jayce Tharnish opened Sunday's game with a homer, his first of SEC play. Kentucky tacked on three more runs in the fourth inning after Tyler Bell drove in two runs and Scott Campbell Jr. singled to score Luke Lawrence.

Junior right-hander Connor Mattison, making his second consecutive start on Sunday, retired the first 10 batters he faced as the Wildcats built their lead. But after the Gamecocks collected their first hit on a single in the fourth, Ethan Lizama homered for the second time on the weekend to cut the lead in half. South Carolina tied the game with two outs in the fifth inning on an error by Campbell in left field. It was a hard hit line drive that sent Campbell running to his right, but the ball hit his glove and fell out. Rather than getting out of the inning with a 4-2 lead, South Carolina tied the game and ended up taking the lead when Jackson Soucie walked in a run.

But Kentucky rallied in the eighth inning. Ethan Hindle was hit by a pitch to start the inning and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Campbell. Freshman Braxton Van Cleave, who homered during Saturday's game, came up with the game-tying single. Van Cleave came around to score on a throwing error by the catcher. Freshman third baseman Caeden Cloud launched a no-doubt homer to make it 7-5.

In the ninth, Kentucky tacked on two more runs on a double by Hindle. Jack Bennett closed out the win by retiring the side in order. Bennett earned his seventh save of the campaign and struck out four batters over two innings, including a strikeout looking on a nasty inside changeup to end the eighth inning.

Kentucky struck out 16 batters as a staff in the victory. Mattison gave a second consecutive good start, striking out eight batters over 4.2 innings and holding South Carolina to two earned runs. Freshman reliever Jack Sams added three strikeouts over two scoreless innings and junior Ryan Mullan struck out a batter as well.

A bad time for a bad outing on Friday

Kentucky redshirt junior Jaxon Jelkin has been far and away the top pitcher on the roster this season. Jelkin had pitched into the fifth inning in all but one SEC start, and he'd completed at least seven innings in four starts. He's been dependable for innings and production outside of a road start two weekends ago against Auburn, which saw eight runs cross in two innings, though only three were earned.

But on Friday, the Gamecocks ambushed Jelkin out of the gates. The first three batters of the game singled, then Lizama hit a grand slam to put South Carolina up 4-1. Jelkin then plunked Dawson Harman next on the first pitch, and he wound up at third base following a wild pitch and a passed ball. Jelkin walked KJ Scobey to put runners on the corners, but Harman scored on a failed pickoff attempt. Jelkin got the next three batters out to strand a runner. Kentucky's offense rallied to tie the game with four runs in the top half of the second, but South Carolina added two runs in the third and one more in the fifth to end Jelkin's night after five innings. He finished with seven earned runs allowed and just three strikeouts.

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The toughest aspect is that Kentucky's offense did more than enough to secure a series-opening win, despite leaving some opportunities on the table. The Wildcats scored nine runs and out-hit South Carolina by one, but it went 1-11 (.091) with two outs and 1-6 (.167) with bases loaded. Still, anyone who has followed this team would've felt great going into Jelkin's start knowing the offense would put up nine runs. As it was, Kentucky's rally fell short in the ninth inning.

The Wildcats entered the inning down 10-7 but trimmed the lead to two runs after Campbell doubled to score a run after back-to-back walks. With runners on second and third, Tagger Tyson was hit by a pitch to load the bases with no outs. Kentucky looked like it might have a shot to pull off the comeback. But Tyler Cerny popped out to the shortstop, then Tharnish reached on a fielder's choice that scored a run to make it 10-9. Lawrence reached on an error to once again load the bases, but Bell flew out to deep center field to end the game.

Other notes

• Kentucky turned to Oliver Boone to start Saturday's bullpen game. Boone was charged with the loss despite not giving up an earned run during the 9-4 defeat. He retired two batters in the first inning and should've been out of the inning on a double play, but Lawrence's throw to Cerny at first base was off line and led to two runs scoring. Ira Austin replaced Boone and had a really nice outing. Austin got out of the first inning with a fly out and then struck out two batters in the second inning. He turned it over to Tristan Hunter. Hunter came into the weekend without allowing an earned run in league play, but that changed on Saturday. He threw four wild pitches and was charged with three earned runs over 1.2 innings. Twenty-nine of his 50 pitches went for strikes and he struck out three while walking one.
• Tharnish returned to the leadoff spot and had an excellent weekend. In addition to hitting his first homer in league play on Sunday, Tharnish collected seven hits over the series. He went 3-6 in Friday's win with a double and a triple, 1-4 with an RBI in Saturday's loss and 3-5 with the homer and double on Sunday.
• There have been expected growing pains for Van Cleave and Cloud, but how big were their contributions in the late-inning rally on Sunday? Van Cleave drove the ball the other way to tie the game in the eighth, and Cloud showed off some raw power with his blast to left to make it 7-5. While Van Cleave has typically served as the DH, he started in right field on Sunday. He's now started seven consecutive games and has collected at least one hit in each of those games. This is just off the top of my head, but when adding Sams' outing out of the bullpen, this might've been the most significant contribution a trio of freshmen has had in an SEC game this season for the Cats.
• As of publication, Kentucky sits at No. 38 in the RPI. The Wildcats dropped nine spots this week. With nine SEC games to go, Kentucky will likely need to win at least four to have a shot at reaching a fourth straight NCAA Tournament. Kentucky has not won consecutive SEC games since the Alabama series, so it'll have a shot to do so on Friday night against Tennessee. It's the start of a massive series in Lexington.