MacLeod dominates as No. 4 Mississippi State beats No. 19 South Carolina
May 8—COLUMBIA, S.C. — Mississippi State ace Christian MacLeod pitched one of the best games of his career on Friday night.
MacLeod allowed only one hit and struck out six batters in seven scoreless innings as No. 4-ranked Mississippi State beat No. 19 South Carolina, 9-0, at Founders Park to open the weekend series.
Mississippi State (34-10, 15-7 SEC) has won four straight SEC games. Game 2 of the series is on Saturday at 3 p.m.
MacLeod (4-3, 3.05 ERA) allowed only three base runners in the game, and two of those came in the third inning. After walking a batter with one out in the bottom of the fourth, MacLeod retired 11 straight batters to end his night after seven.
He had never pitched longer than six innings in his career and has only reached six innings three times this year. He had not made it out of the fourth inning in either of his last two outings.
MacLeod had plenty of run support to help his cause as the Mississippi State offense took an early lead on South Carolina (27-16, 11-11) starter Brannon Jordan, then exploded for six runs on the Gamecocks' bullpen late in the game.
Rowdey Jordan, Tanner Allen and Kamren James each singled to lead off the top of the first inning and gave Mississippi State a 2-0 lead, then Jordan and Allen struck again in the top of the fifth inning.
Jordan hit a one-out double down the right field line, then scored on a RBI single up the middle by Allen to make the score 3-0.
After South Carolina's Jordan was pulled to start the seventh inning, the Bulldogs quickly struck against reliever Magdiel Cotto.
Cotto allowed a single, walk and hit-by-pitch to load the bases with no outs, and James hit a bases-clearing double to right field to push the score to 6-0. MSU added two more runs on Cotto on a passed ball and a Brad Cumbest RBI double later in the inning.
Jordan walked with one out in the eighth inning, and Allen singled him in one last time to push MSU's lead to 9-0.
Jordan, Allen and James finished the game a combined 8-11 at the plate with six RBIs and scored seven runs.
