Offense blooms late again, plating eight runs in the sixth and seventh inning, ensures regular-season series finale victory with 8-3 win

South Carolina starter Garrett Gainey, who had one previous start this season prior to tonight, held the Vols’ offense to no runs and three hits through five innings. But again, the offense got going late in the game, with two home runs in the sixth and a Blake Burke, game-sealing home run in the seventh, while Drew Beam turned in another quality start of six innings, 1 ER and 4 Ks, which was enough to get him the win, put him at 8-2 on the year and secure the series win for Tennessee with an 8-3 final score.

Gainey allowed just six base runners through five innings and held the Vols to 0-6 with runners on base to that point. Christian Moore started the game 2-2, but given Gainey had allowed only one other hit to Hunter Ensley with one out in the second, none of those base hits from Moore were RBI chances.

UT starter Drew Beam started the game off with two quick outs on ground balls, but then walked his first hitter of the game. The base runner at first was quickly snatched up by Beam with a blink-and-you-miss-it pick-off move to first that caught the runner who’d strayed just far enough from first for Burke to apply the tag.

Beam ran into trouble in the second when he allowed a single to lead off the inning. After a fly-ball out, the runner on first advanced to second on Tennessee’s first error of the inning, and then Beam walked the next hitter on five pitches.

A fielder’s choice should have gotten the lead runner and made it two outs in the inning, but instead, another Vol error allowed all the runners to reach safely and load the bases.

Two-straight run-scoring singles and a sac fly gave the Gamecocks a 3-0 lead with Christian Moore and Blake Burke being charged with the two previous errors. Two of the three runs scored were counted as unearned for Beam.

Gainey sat the UT hitters down in order in the fourth and fifth innings, while Beam found his groove when he allowed just one runner and no runs in the same frames. In the fifth, SC sent the runner from first to second with two outs, Stark made the throw and Curley made a heady play to keep the tag on as the SC would-be base thief started his slide late and passed up the bag.

Beam pitched the sixth, struck out a batter and sat the SC lineup down in order. That ended up as his last half inning of the game, and he finished with 6 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 2 BB and 4 Ks. Vitello took him out at 104 pitches, with 59 going for called or swinging strikes.

Tennessee’s offense followed a recent trend of productive sixth innings when Moore hit a solo home run with one out that went 419 feet to the opposite field with a 109 MPH exit velo for his 27th dinger of the year.

One out later, Amick and Dreiling singled in consecutive at bats, and Ensley made Gainey pay with a three-run home run that sent Gainey to the bench and put the Vols up 4-3.

Behnke entered in the T7 and struck out a hitter while throwing a 1-2-3 frame — with some help from Moore and Burke, who redeemed themselves from the previous errors with this diving stab from Moore up the middle and a great stretch and scoop from Burke to the end the half inning for Behnke.

In the B7, the offense put its final stamp on the game against the SC bullpen that just couldn’t keep the same energy from Gainey’s impressive start to the game. Jake McCoy gave up two runs in 0.2 innings following Gainey and Parker Marlatt served up a grand slam to Blake Burke after McCoy surrendered a four-pitch, one-out walk followed by a HBP. Marlatt entered, walked Moore and served up a ball that Burke just destroyed over the fence in center — one that went 448 feet and left the park at 112 MPH. Tennessee needed just one hit to plate four runs in the home half of the seventh.

At the end of the fifth inning, Tennessee was down 3-0 and had three hits. By the end of the seventh, it was an 8-3 game thanks to back-to-back four spots in the sixth and seventh frames.

Combs got the ball in the eighth, and despite Moore’s second error of the game, the Vols’ RS-JR stranded a man on third, struck out two, which included the final hitter of the inning on a gnarly breaking ball.

The bats kept chugging along in the B8 as Ensley on a full-count walk, and Kavares Tears smacked a double down the line in right off Marlatt, which put two RISP with no outs.

Carolina went back to the bullpen for Michael Polk, who came in and struck out Ariel Antigua on three-straight fastballs before he hit Cannon Peebles with a pitch to load the bases. Polk got Stark to strikeout, again on the fastball, and sat down Moore for the first time of the game on a ground-ball out. Tennessee left the bases loaded, but it didn’t matter in the end.

Combs’ final line, with some help from Antigua in the B9 on two different outs: 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 Ks.

Moore’s final line: 3-4, I HR, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 0 K

Burke went just 1-4, but the one was his 16th long ball of the year that added four RBIs.

Ensley finished 2-3 with 3 RBIs, one HR, one BB.

Tears went 1-4, but nobody after him in the order managed a hit, as Ensley batted in the fifth spot tonight.

The Vols defense committed a season-high four errors, and it was the first time Tennessee committed more than two errors so far this season in a single contest. UT is 6-3 this season in games when it commits at least two errors, but that’s an overall stat — not one that just singles out SEC play, for contextual purposes.

UT goes for the series sweep tomorrow at 1 PM EST.