CCU Baseball Notebook: Bilous the likely starter for elimination game Thursday

While Coastal Carolina now faces a must-win game Thursday night against Texas Tech if it wants to continue this unforgettable postseason run, the Chanticleers will not rush ace right-hander Andrew Beckwith back to the mound on short rest.

After his team took a 6-1 loss to TCU on Tuesday night at TD Ameritrade Park to move to an elimination game in the College World Series, Gilmore made it clear he wasn’t giving any consideration to that idea after Beckwith threw nine innings Sunday night in a win over Florida.

Instead, the Chants (50-17) will likely turn to freshman right-hander Jason Bilous against the Red Raiders (47-19).

Bilous is 3-1 with a 4.04 earned-run average over 42 1/3 innings and hasn’t pitched since June 6 in the NCAA regionals at NC State.

“Just off the top of my head, I would assume we’ll go with Bilous. I mean he’s the freshest arm and he’s going to have to do the job,” Gilmore said. “I’m not going to jeopardize Beckwith, and I don’t know if he can pitch Friday [either]. But we’ll see, we already talked about it a minute ago, he’ll let me know. If we can win Thursday we’ll figure [it out], it may be every man on board on Friday to try to get to him on Saturday in a do-or-die game.

“So we’ll see. As much as I want to win, I’m not going to put that young man’s health in jeopardy.”

Bilous was the prized recruit of the Chants’ freshman class after turning down a $600,000 offer from the Los Angeles Dodgers as a 29th-round draft pick last summer.

He was eased back this spring while completing his recovery from Tommy John surgery – which is the reason he fell in the draft last summer – and has mixed flashes of great potential with inconsistency this season.

Bilous’ best start came in the championship game of the Big South tournament when he held Liberty to just two hits over 5 1/3 scoreless innings.

He was not as effective pitching in the NCAA regionals while giving up two runs on six hits and three walks over 3 2/3 innings to NC State, but he learned earlier that week that his grandfather had died and he would head back for the funeral after that night.

Texas Tech coach Tim Tadlock, meanwhile, didn’t announce a starting pitcher after his team eliminated Florida, 3-2, in the first losers bracket game.

The winner Thursday night will then get another chance at TCU on Friday (and possibly Saturday), needing to beat the Horned Frogs twice to advance to the best-of-three series with the winner from the other half of the College World Series bracket.

After the Red Raiders’ win Tuesday, Tadlock shared some brief thoughts on potentially facing the Chants.

“What I saw on TV last week and what I read about them so far and what I’ve seen looks like they’ve got an older group that likes to play,” he said. “Looks like they hit a lot of home runs ... steal a lot bases.

“I saw the guy steal second base last week when he had to steal second base and then they get the hit to score and win the game [in the super regionals at LSU]. It’s not easy to go to Baton Rouge and win a series, much less in a super regional setting. That’s not a comfortable place to go, and anybody that goes there and wins two [games] is playing some really good baseball.”

The Chants haven’t lost two games in a row since being swept in a three-game series at Georgia Tech from April 29-May 1. They have won 19 of 22 games since then and are now playing for their season with no margin for error.

“Of all the teams I’ve coached, they have to rank up there as one of the most resilient groups I’ve ever had,” Gilmore said. “If we play the way we played today on Thursday we’ll be heading home. We have to play better pretty much in every aspect of the game. We weren’t good in anything tonight, and at the end of the day you have to tip your hat to TCU a lot. They sped my infield guys up, they controlled our guys in the batters box. So you tip your hat to them.

“Can we respond back? Like I said, we have all year long so I’m surely not going to allow them to give me anything less than their very best on Thursday and we have a great opponent to have to deal with on Thursday.”

Power drought in TD Ameritrade Park

Coastal Carolina, which leads the NCAA with 94 home runs this season, has yet to hit one out in two games at spacious TD Ameritrade Park.

There have been six home runs hit overall through eight College World Series games – two by TCU’s Luken Baker after his solo shot in the second inning Tuesday night.

Gilmore acknowledged the impact the ballpark has had to this point.

“Our team, we’ve been able to respond over the course of the year when we’ve made mistakes and we’ve been able to get a longball or something to get back in the ballgame,” he said. “This park plays very similar to the park we played in for two years [at TicketReturn.com Field at Pelicans Ballpark]. It’s unforgiving. You get down three runs and you feel like you’re down 23 runs, to be very honest with you. It’s very difficult to try to manage exactly how to play in this park having been in a completely different setting all year long.”

Burnett shuts down Chants

TCU reliever Ryan Burnett retired all 10 batters he faced Tuesday to close out the win over the Chants.

Afterward Horned Frogs coach Jim Schlossnagle put the performance in perspective.

“Just so proud of Ryan. The guy’s been through two surgeries. He’s pitching with a torn ACL that will more than likely get fixed after the season,” he said. “For him to hang around and gut it out, it’s just an awesome testament to his character and strength. And just couldn’t be more proud of him.”

Losers bracket history

The last team to make it out of the losers bracket and into the best-of-three final at the College World Series was South Carolina in 2012.

Those Gamecocks lost their second game, to Arkansas, and came back to beat Kent State and win a rematch with the Razorbacks to reach the championship series before losing to Arizona in two games.

This story was originally published June 22, 2016 at 2:37 AM with the headline "CCU Baseball Notebook: Bilous the likely starter for elimination game Thursday."