Latest injury updates on Ethan Petry and Nathan Hall from Paul Mainieri
South Carolina was down its two top hitters in a 5-3 win over Charleston Southern on Tuesday, and that could remain the case moving forward.
Star slugger Ethan Petry, who has missed the last three games after crashing into the rightfield wall at Kentucky over the weekend, could be out longer, possibly even the rest of the season.
“He’s got what they call a strain of the AC joint in his left shoulder,” head coach Paul Mainieri said. “It was such a freak injury, you know, if you watch the video of it, the ball took kind of a funny bounce. He was kind of ready to play it, and when it took that funny bounce, he kind of accelerated to try to field the ball and rammed his left shoulder into the wall.”
Mainieri said Petry’s recovery time will roughly be two to four weeks. With three weeks left in the regular season, that could easily put him on the shelf for the remaining 10 games. But Mainieri hasn’t officially ruled him out from returning later on if he can heal in a shorter timeframe.
“There’s a good chance that he’s done for the year,” Mainieri said. “But, you know, maybe he could get back for the last series or the SEC Tournament. We’ll have to see.”
If Petry’s season is over, he’ll finish hitting .329 with 10 homers and 34 RBI in 43 games. He’s currently 10 home runs away from breaking Justin Smoak’s career all-time program record of 62. But this could be it for his college career as he will be eligible for the MLB Draft this summer.
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The other main injury of note is to leading hitter Nathan Hall, who hurt his heel running into the centerfield wall at Texas A&M on April 11. It’s an injury that has seemingly bothered the team’s leading hitter ever since.
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“It’s never really completely gone away, and it probably won’t until he rests it completely,” Mainieri said. “And this past weekend, Kentucky has an artificial turf field, and it’s particularly hard. There’s not a sand base to it. I worried about his heel pounding on that hard ground all weekend.
“And about two-thirds of the way through the game on Sunday, I could start to see him limping when he’d run out to centerfield for a new inning. So I wasn’t really surprised on Monday when he couldn’t run it all.”
Mainieri said Hall didn’t practice with the rest of the team on Monday. He thought about having him pinch-hit on Tuesday but ultimately decided not to do so. Unlike with Petry, the first-year head coach is more optimistic about Hall’s chances to return sooner rather than later.
“He’s taking batting practice and everything. We just got to see how it feels over the next couple of days,” Mainieri said. “Hopefully with a couple days rest, and then will be feeling better for him by Friday, and hopefully he’ll be able to play.”
South Carolina will begin a three-game series with the Florida Gators on Friday at Founders Park. First pitch is at 7 p.m. on SEC Network Plus.
