South Carolina baseball: Gamecocks ready for annual rivalry series

It’s finally rivalry week for South Carolina baseball.

The Gamecocks (7-1) take a mix of young and old in the lineup and a banged-up pitching staff against Clemson (8-0) with the first game at Founders Park.

It’s a Gamecock team facing plenty of adversity early still trying to put the pieces together offensively while the pitching staff has faced injury after injury.

“Health-wise, that needs to improve. We just need to get healthy. We need to have everyone available. We’re far from that right now. The key for this team is to stay the course, stay positive and keep pushing forward,” Mark Kingston said.

“We’ve had guys step up so far. We just need to continue to evaluate roles and continue to evaluate who can increase their importance to the team…We won’t be a finished product until truthfully the second half of the season once we get everyone back and everyone healthy. The key in the meantime is to just keep fighting.”

Game times, how to watch and listen

Friday (Founders Park): 7 p.m. (SEC Network Plus, 107.5 FM)

Saturday (SEGRA Park): 4 p.m. (ACC Network Extra, 107.5 FM)

Sunday (Doug Kingsmore Stadium): 3 p.m. (ACC Network, 107.5 FM)

Probable pitching (South Carolina listed first)

Friday: RHP Will Sanders (2-0, 3.00 ERA) vs. LHP Mack Anglin (2-0, 0.00 ERA)

Saturday: TBA vs. RHP Nick Hoffman (1-0, 4.50 ERA)

Sunday: TBA RHP Nick Clayton (0-0, 9.53 ERA)

South Carolina starting strong

With South Carolina having plenty of question marks on the mound, the Gamecocks will need a good outing from Will Sanders to set the tone Friday night at Founders Park.

Sanders had his coming-out party against Clemson last season and now will be the frontline pitcher during this rivalry. It’ll be a big litmus test early in the season for Sanders, who is expected to take a big leap forward as a sophomore.

“Will’s always been a confident guy,” Kingston said. “I don’t think you do what you did last year without being confident…He’s a self-assured kid and knows he can be really good. Once he has success the confidence continues to grow.”

Sanders has given up four earned runs in 12 innings so far this year and is coming off a season-high, seven-inning performance against GW last week. He’ll go toe-to-toe with lefty Mack Anglin, who hasn’t given up a run in 10 innings this year with 14 strikeouts.

Scouting Clemson

The Tigers come in undefeated and looking much improved from last year’s team that missed the NCAA Tournament.

Kingston called the Tigers a “complete team,” and they’re led offensively by Caden Grice, who’s slashing .367/.535/.667 with three homers already. As an offense, Clemson is averaging over 11 runs per game and slashing .329/.466/.516 with four players hitting over .350 in the early season.

From a pitching standpoint, Anglin is the workhorse but it’s a strikeout-heavy staff with 98 punch-outs in eight games and just a 2.59 ERA and .213 batting average against.

“They’ve been fielding it really well. They’ve been producing offensively. Their ERA is at a very low level,” Kingston said. “They look to be a complete team and look like they’ve bounced back from last year. It looks like it’ll take everything we got, no question.”

Pitching problems

As it sits right now, the Gamecocks have eight pitchers on the roster either out for the year or not pitching at the moment, putting the staff and pitching coach Justin Parker in a tough spot.

It’s to the point where South Carolina isn’t sure who it’ll start the final two games of the series. Regardless of the Saturday and Sunday starters, the Gamecocks will put freshmen in big positions over the weekend and need them to perform.

Wesley Sweatt could slide to a starter role along with guys like Cade Austin or Noah Hall. That means other bullpen arms like Aidan Hunter, Michael Braswell, John Gilreath, Matt Becker, Parker Coyne and Michael Esposito will need to embrace bigger roles.

“This group will be resilient. This group will band together and this group will give it everything it’s got. We’ll go from there,” Kingston said. “We’re not going to feel sorry for ourselves and we’re not going to make excuses. We’re going to ask guys to step up and have bigger roles and they’ll do exactly that.”

Offensive progress

The offense is the biggest focal point entering the season and has shown signs of progress early. As a team, the Gamecocks are slashing .311/.434/.450 and have walked (53) more than they’ve struck out (52) through eight games.

They’re averaging 8.1 runs per game with only seven home runs through eight games.

“We’ve got a lot of guys that can contribute. Plain and simple, there’s been a handful of guys who’ve come in and done something,” Eyster said. “You have to be able to rely on guys who don’t get to play every day. We’re lucky to have a bunch of guys who can step up and get the job done when their name is called.”

Eyster and Braylen Wimmer have paced it but the Gamecocks have plenty of freshmen making an impact. Five freshmen have started for South Carolina offensively and are slashing .278/.453/.389 with 22 walks to 10 strikeouts.

Michael Braswell is the biggest name right now of the group but both Cole Messina and Carson Hornung have hit leadoff and that could continue. This weekend will be the first big test.

“We’re evaluating that lineup every day in terms of how it flows, left-right matchups,” Kingston said. “We want to move it around a little bit and tweak it. You just want to maximize and make sure it’s working at 100 percent capacity…he’s taking quality at-bats. That’s what we’re asking our guys to do: swing at the right pitches and when you get to two strikes battle. Win your at-bats.”