Schmidt ready if called upon for Game 1 of Super Regionals
+All Clarke Schmidt wants is a healthy heaping of brotherly love.
Likely to face Oklahoma State in either Game 1 or 2 of the NCAA Super Regional, Schmidt has a reliable source of information at his disposal on the Cowboys hitters – older brother Clate faced OSU last weekend in the Clemson Regional and was battered for eight runs on nine hits in 2.1 innings, facing 18 batters, getting a look twice at each Oklahoma State hitter.
Schmidt will, of course, receive a detailed scouting report on the Oklahoma State hitters from Gamecock coaches, but a few additional nuggets of information from his brother wouldn’t hurt.
“He’s coming down (for the regional) and the whole family is going out to eat, so hopefully he’ll give me a detailed scouting report,” Schmidt said Thursday during a pre-Super Regional media session at Founders Park. “He said he would give me one. Hopefully, it will be good. They are a good hitting team. They are aggressive. They banged the ball all around the park last weekend. They tore it up.”
The Gamecocks had yet to announce a starting pitcher for Game 1 of the Super Regional by late Thursday night, but Schmidt declared himself ready to go in case he gets the ball.
Schmidt threw 89 pitches in 4.0 innings last Friday night in the 5-4 loss to Rhode Island. Four days later, he threw 19 pitches in the eighth inning of the winner-take-all game win over UNCW, prompting concerns he might not be ready for the Super Regional opener.
“I feel good,” Schmidt said. “We’re all chomping on the bit to get there out on the field. Last week was definitely an unconventional week with me throwing 90 pitches on Friday night and coming back and throwing 20. I know they want me to give me an extra day of rest because I have done so many short rest weeks this far this year.
“Getting an extra day of rest might be the better thing to do. I told them I’m ready to go. We’ll talk today (Thursday) and we’ll see how my workoput goes and how my arm feels after that.
Schmidt has already thrown 105.1 innings in 17 appearances this season, the first time he has ever surpassed the century mark so he wants to be careful.
A college pitcher logging 100 innings in a 55-60 game schedule is the equivalent of a major league pitcher hurling nearly 300 innings, something that rarely happens nowadays.
“I had never thrown 100 innings in a season before,” Schmidt said. “Whenever you have a 100-inning season, you feel like you have thrown forever. It does catch up with you, but right now I feel fine. All the workouts I do in the offseason and all the work I do (during the season) has set me up for this. The weekly grind is tough, but I feel really good. I’m ready to get out there and get another outing under my belt.”
Could the innings be catching up to Schmidt? After lasting at least 6.0 innings in 12 of his first 13 starts in 2016, Schmidt has failed to reach the sixth inning in any of his last three starts – 4.2 IP at Alabama, 4.1 vs. Ole Miss (SEC Tourney) and 4.0 vs. URI (regional) – and allowed 19 hits and 16 runs in 13.0 innings.
“I always have high expectations for myself,” Schmidt said. “I always want to go out there and go deep in games and give my team a chance to win. The last couple of outings I didn’t go as deep as I wanted to. Sometimes you go through little ruts like this as a pitcher. You’re not going to go eight innings every time out. Even the best pitchers in the country go through ruts like this.”
While his past three outings have not been as lengthy as his previous starts in February, March and April, Schmidt contends his velocity is not down. His fastball was consistently clocked by USC's radar gun in the 91-95 miles per hour range against URI last Friday.
“I want to go seven or eight innings every time I go out there,” Schmidt said. “I didn’t do that in my past couple of outings. I hold myself to a higher standard. I want to go out this upcoming weekend and have a deep outing. It’s tough in the post-season because you can’t make many mistakes. You always have a short leash because we’re trying to win every game we can.
“I have to make better pitches and work ahead of hitters. When I do that, I’m pretty tough to hit. My goal this weekend is to get into favorable counts and work ahead of hitters more the entire game.”
Oklahoma State hammered Clemson pitching – including Clate Schmidt - for 21 runs and 29 hits in a pair of victories over the Tigers at Doug Kingsmore Stadium. OSU clinched the regional championship by virtue of a 9-2 win on Sunday night.
“I didn’t know much about them before Clemson, but we all saw how they played in the regional,” Schmidt said. “They tore it up. They hit the ball very well and caught every ball in sight. They are a hot team right now. I know they’re eager to get on the field and we’re the same way. We’re excited to see what happens. We’re ready to get after them. I know they can hit the ball pretty well and they’re a very aggressive team.”
