Mark Kingston updates injury status, postseason availability for senior 3B Gavin Casas

South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Mark Kingston shared that the injury to senior third baseman Gavin Casas is going to cost him the postseason.

Casas is going to need surgery on his hand to repair his broken hamate bone. It’s an injury that he suffered during the team’s SEC Tournament win over Kentucky. Now, the Gamecocks are going to need to find a way to replace his production as he’s unavailable for the NCAA Tournament.

Losing Gavin Casas is going to be difficult for South Carolina to manage. In 56 games this season, he’s batting .260 with a .385 OBP and a .491 slugging percentage. He has 10 home runs, 35 RBIs, and 31 runs scored. Those are all good numbers, but they’re actually down from his 2023 season and Kingston and the Gamecocks know he would have been a big boost in the lineup throughout the NCAA Tournament.

In South Carolina’s SEC Tournament game against LSU, which came after Casas was injured, Talmadge Lecroy took over at third. He was later pinch-hit for Lee Ellis.

The hamate bone is in the hand, and it was the right hand that Casas injured. That came in the fifth inning when he fouled off a ball. While trying to collect himself, he showed visible pain when the umpire touched his hand. He wouldn’t be able to finish the at-bat. All of that came after Casas hit a key home run in the second inning of the game against Kentucky.

It was after that home run that Mark Kingston praised Gavin Casas.

“That just speaks to our entire team,” Kingston said. “I keep getting asked, how are you going to bounce back after a loss. These are very resilient kids. I think we forget that sometimes. And, so the fact that he was able to hit that three-run homer after the tough night last night, very happy for him to bounce back like that.”

The exact way that Gavin Casas was injured is not entirely uncommon in baseball, with Mike Trout notably breaking his hamate bone by fouling a ball off wrong during his 2023 season.

The Gamecocks are headed to Raleigh for their regional. There, they’re set to compete against James Madison, NC State, and Bryant. There, the Gamecocks are a slight favorite to win the regional and advance in the NCAA Tournament over the Wolfpack. South Carolina’s first NCAA Tournament game is on Friday, against James Madison.