Paul Mainieri reveals plans for South Carolina's weekend rotation
As Opening Day nears, South Carolina head coach Paul Mainieri revealed some important details as to what his pitching plans are when the 2025 season begins.
Making an appearance on “On Inside the Gamecocks The Morning Show,” Mainieri said Dylan Eskew will start game one and Matthew Becker will start game two of the Sacred Heart series next weekend. For the series finale next Sunday, that spot will be left open as TBA for right now.
Eskew and Becker have both pitched well throughout the preseason so far. Eskew, who started 15 games in 2024, has struck out nine and walked six through seven innings in scrimmage action. Becker had a great fall and has carried it over with six innings of one-run ball and six strikeouts to three walks this preseason.
As for what Mainieri plans to do with the final weekend rotation spot, as well as midweek duties, that will be decided through scrimmages this weekend.
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“We’re probably going to start five different, or I know we’ll start five different guys, but legitimately give them a chance to be a starting pitcher and go out there and pitch up to five innings, maybe six, if pitch counts are going good, and then kind of re-evaluate it after that,” he said.
Going into the preseason, Mainieri initially tabbed Eskew, Eli Jerzembeck and Jake McCoy as the “frontrunners” to make the rotation. But Jerzembeck and McCoy have each experienced some struggles in their recent outings.
Jerzembeck, who is coming off Tommy John surgery, has been hit around a bit, giving up six runs through six innings of work. He’s also struck out seven and walked nine. When he does take the mound this season, it will be his first game action since May 7, 2023.
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“Jerzembeck has the stuff to do it,” Mainieri said, “but he has not pitched well since we’ve come back to school.”
Win tickets to Sacred Heart Game 1: Season opener, Paul Mainieri’s debut
McCoy, entering his sophomore season, has shown flashes with a high velocity reaching the mid to upper 90s. But like Jerzembeck, he’s been prone to walk batters and also given up three homers, all of which came in his most recent appearance.
“I’m still waiting for Jake to kind of take the next step to be that quality starting pitcher,” Mainieri said. “Listen, what I’ve seen so far out of Jake is been pretty consistent in this sense. You’re going to get two, three good, really awesome innings, like SEC starter, you know, pretty good starting pitcher in the SEC. But then when it starts to unravel, he hasn’t yet shown the ability to take a step off the mound, take a deep breath, and then stop the bleeding.
“When I think back to the best pitchers I ever had, they had that nobody’s perfect for the whole game, but the great pitchers had that ability to raise their game to another level when it started to hit the fan. They were able to get out of that inning, minimize the damage, and then settle back in and start to dominate again. Jake hasn’t done that yet, and that’s keeping him from me anointing him as a starting pitcher yet.”
South Carolina opens the 2025 season on Friday, Feb. 14, when it takes on Sacred Heart. First pitch is at 4 p.m. from Founders Park.
