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Henry Kaczmar impressing with glove as he works through early hitting slump

imageby:Jack Veltri•about 9 hours•

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Henry Kaczmar (Katie Dugan/GamecockCentral)

It hasn’t been an ideal start to the season for South Carolina shortstop Henry Kaczmar, at least offensively. His early struggles reached a point where head coach Paul Maineiri decided to give him a day off on Sunday.

“It was not a reflection on Kacz at all,” Mainieri said after Sunday’s 14-4 win. He’s been playing great defense. But he’s been scuffling a little bit at the plate. I wanted him to have a day where he could just work in the cages, work in pregame batting practice.”

Kaczmar, in his first season with the Gamecocks after transferring from Ohio State, is 4-for-27 (.148) with no extra-base hits and two RBI. Mainieri had previously dropped him down in the lineup from hitting second to seventh. But giving him some time away from game action was a better solution.

“He had the best batting practice he’s had all year; Actually squared up 99 percent of the balls that were thrown to him,” Mainieri said. “… Sometimes it’s good to just not have the pressure on you to play in the game and realize the things that you need to work on.”

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While his offense has yet to come along in 2025, his defense has taken a big step forward. Kaczmar has a team-leading 12 assists and owns a 1.000 fielding percentage without committing any errors. It’s been a complete flip for him since he was a career .310 hitter for the Buckeyes while making 21 errors and fielding at a .954 clip.

Mainieri said Kaczmar hadn’t been performing too well at shortstop in the days leading up to the start of the season. But after talking with him about a few things he saw, they changed his “style” of fielding.

“Just made him charge everything and be just really aggressive and attack the ball,” Mainieri said. “One day he was getting ready to take ground balls. The first ground ball that was hit to him, he fumbled it and that’s when I talked to him about it.

“After that, no matter how hard the ball was hit, he was charging it and before you know it everything’s sticking in the pocket of his glove.”

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Since then, Mainieri has noticed a shift in Kaczmar’s confidence when he’s in the field. He’s showing signs of becoming a better fielder. He hasn’t always needed to charge at the ball and instead let it come to him.

“He showed some good range on some balls to both sides. But when your confidence is good, you’re going to make those kind of plays,” Mainieri said. “When your confidence is shaky, you almost don’t want the ball hit to you. His confidence is just very high and he’s showing the caliber of defender that he really is.”

Mainieri believes Kaczmar will eventually break out of his slump and get his bat going again. Given his track record from previous years, he can be a capable hitter. For now, as he works through his hitting woes, his improved glove will still be there for South Carolina.

“That’s the shortstop that we recruited,” Mainieri said of Kaczmar’s defense. “That’s what we thought we were going to get.”

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