No. 18 South Carolina at Mississippi State, game 1 recap: Bulldogs blow out Gamecocks 13-2

I'm going to break from my usual recap style tonight, because I don't need a ton of words to explain how Mississippi State scored 13 runs while South Carolina did next to nothing at the plate.

So, a quick run down of the scoring activity:

• 2-0 Bulldogs in the bottom of the first inning - Both runs were unearned because the Gamecocks made two errors
• 8-0 Bulldogs in the bottom of the third inning - A double, one-out single, and HBP loaded the bases for Mississippi State, then they got lots of runs off a single, a bases-clearing triple, and another single
• 8-1 Bulldogs in the top of the fourth inning - Kyle Martin doubled, advanced to third on a bad pitch, and came home on another wild pitch
• 8-2 Bulldogs in the top of the sixth inning - Max Schrock led off with a base hit, Elliott Caldwell singled with one out, and DC Arendas came through with an RBI double
• 10-2 Bulldogs in the bottom of the sixth inning - Three straight walks loaded the bases for Mississippi State, a pair of one-out sac flies got two runners home
• 12-2 Bulldogs in the bottom of the seventh inning -  A leadoff walk, base hit, error and another single gave MSU another pair of runs
• 13-2 Bulldogs in the bottom of the eighth inning - A two-out single brought in Mississippi State's final run of the night

Save for the two runs, pretty much everything else the Gamecocks did in this game was not very good. The pitching was subpar, the hitting was almost nonexistent, and the defense struggled. Bad losses happen, of course, and I don't want to be unnecessarily negative, but the virtually nonexistent offense and lack of fundamentals both offensively and defensively is disappointing, albeit consistent.

South Carolina drops to 20-10 overall and 5-5 in the SEC, while Mississippi State improves to 20-12 overall and 4-6 in conference play. They'll meet again Friday at 4 p.m., which was changed from the previously scheduled 7:30 p.m. start due to weather.