Kerr throws a gem as Chanticleers beat Winthrop

After racking up a season-high 19 runs in the series opener, the Coastal Carolina baseball team showed it still had a little bit of offense left over for Saturday.

But with the way senior left-hander Austin Kerr has been pitching, the Chanticleers really didn’t need much.

Kerr, the former Chester Cyclone standout, mostly silenced Winthrop through 6 2/3 innings and combined with freshman righty Bobby Holmes on the shutout as the Chants downed the Eagles, 6-0, before an announced crowd of 1,505 at Springs Brooks Stadium.

It was the 11th straight victory for Coastal Carolina (20-6, 5-0 Big South), continuing the program’s longest winning streak since 2010.

“We’ve kind of been like this a lot this year where we’re locked in really good one day and the next day it’s just a little bit of a challenge,” Chants coach Gary Gilmore said. “… (But Kerr) was really good today. He really did a great job slowing down a very good offensive team and I can’t say enough about him. We won because he was that good.”

Kerr improved to 5-0 and lowered his earned-run average to 1.45 while allowing just three hits and a walk and notching four strikeouts.

He was making his third start of the season after being moved back from the bullpen to solidify the Chants’ weekend rotation and he delivered his longest outing since throwing back-to-back shutouts last April.

He was on his way to adding another to his resume, but he said his leg cramped over his final couple innings before he turned it over to the bullpen.

Getting the win, though, had special significance for the senior from Chester.

“I don’t know if anybody knows, but I’ve never thrown good against Winthrop in my career so this week I was really hungry and I wanted to have success against them,” said Kerr, who grew up about 20 minutes from the Eagles’ campus. “I worked the hardest I’ve ever worked in my life to make sure that I took care of business and it felt great to do it against Winthrop. It’s pretty much my hometown team. It just felt great to do well against them.”

Holmes, a highly promising rookie, was effective again as well, allowing one hit, one walk and a hit by pitch while picking up two strikeouts over 2 1/3 scoreless innings to close out the win.

As for that high-scoring Coastal Carolina offense, which ranks among the national leaders and entered the day averaging a tick over eight runs per game, the Chants scored in four straight innings Saturday from the third through the sixth to build their lead.

Junior Connor Owings had an RBI triple in the third, freshman Al Molina delivered an RBI single in the fourth, sophomore G.K. Young drove in another run on a sacrifice fly in the fifth and junior Tyler Chadwick crushed a home run – his third of the season – over the bullpen in right field to lead off the sixth.

That lead swelled bigger when sophomore Michael Paez followed up his six-RBI performance in the series opener with a two-run single in the eighth.

Paez, who was 5-for-5 in the first game against Winthrop, went 2-for-4 with two RBIs and two runs scored Saturday, junior Anthony Marks was 3-for-5, Chadwick finished 2-for-3 with an RBI and two runs, Owings was 2-for-4 with an RBI and junior Zach Remillard was 2-for-5 as nine Chants in all recorded hits in the win.

Left-hander Josh Strong took the loss for Winthrop (17-10, 1-4), giving up 10 hits, a walk and three runs in 4 2/3 innings.

“We just know that we can put some runs up no matter who we’re facing,” Chadwick said. “We knew today was going to be a grind. That guy, he threw well against us last year and he’s a good pitcher. We knew we had to grind some at-bats out and put some quality ones together. I think we did a good job. Early on he threw well, but we scrapped and clawed and we got a few runs and it was enough to get a win.”

The teams will conclude the three-game set Sunday with Coastal Carolina freshman righty Zack Hopeck (2-0, 3.08 ERA) expected to oppose Winthrop lefty Matt Crohan (2-2, 2.57) on the mound.

Chadwick said the Chants aren’t making too big of a deal about the winning streak while just trying to stay focused on the next game.

“We came in the fall with a thing – ‘Win,’” he said. “So our thing is to win every day and if we show up every day and play to the best of our abilities, it’s going to be tough for teams to beat us.”

The Chants are now just four wins from matching their total from last season when they slumped to a 24-33 finish, and that memory remains an ever present motivator, Kerr said.

“We’re just taking things day by day, we’re winning and it’s the greatest feeling ever,” he said. “Last year, we keep that in our minds all the time because it was so bad. Just having success now and keep(ing) this train rolling is a great feeling for us.”

This story was originally published March 28, 2015 at 11:28 PM with the headline "Kerr throws a gem as Chanticleers beat Winthrop."