South Carolina baseball coach Paul Mainieri is excited about his pitchers

On Saturday, South Carolina baseball welcomed the Air Force Falcons to Ray Tanner Field at Founders Park for an exhibition. The Gamecocks won the 14-inning marathon 18-3 (the teams agreed to play 14 innings before the day began).

After the scrimmage was over, South Carolina head coach Paul Mainieri spent a few minutes with the media. He only talked for about eight minutes, but he saved some of his biggest praise for his pitchers.

Coach Mainieri didn’t like that his pitching staff surrendered so many walks to the Falcons hitters (between walks and HBPs, USC hurlers allowed fourteen free passes on the day). However, he is excited about his pitching staff, saying, “I think Terry Rooney has done a tremendous job with those guys.”

That work, alongside the talent on the roster, has Mainieri believing this year could be a good one for the Gamecock arms.

“I think there’s talent there. Tonight, I thought, was very encouraging: a lot of swings and misses, made a lot of clutch pitches, like I said, when guys were on base or in scoring position. I thought everything was very encouraging except for the times we ended up walking some batters.”

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Near the end of his time in front of the media scrum, Mainieri took some time to shout out two specific pitchers, Eli Jerzembeck and Jake McCoy.

Jerzembeck started the scrimmage and was the only pitcher to throw multiple frames. He had a great first inning but ran into a few bumps in the road in the second. The concern from Mainieri, though, was nonexistent. In fact, he was just glad to see Jerzembeck back out on the mound.

“I think it was great for him to get his first time out there pitching against another team since March of his freshman year. So, you expect him to be a little bit rusty, maybe have a little bit of nerves. He’s pitched in the intra-squad games better than he pitched tonight.”

Other than some work during in-house scrimmages, Saturday’s time on the mound was Jerzembeck’s first appearance in a Gamecock uniform in a year and a half following a torn UCL in 2023.

Mainieri chalked up a less-than-stellar second inning to that. “You know, remember, he’s coming off of Tommy John surgery, too, so his arm gets a little achy sometimes. You know, sometimes not as lively. He’s been throwing a lot. Terry has had him on a very intense throwing program, so sometimes his arm feels—I don’t want to say dead—but, you know, not as lively. Today, he didn’t quite have the zip he normally has. But I think Eli is going to be a very vital player for us, obviously.”

A couple of tough breaks went against the redshirt sophomore in that second inning. Henry Kaczmar had two hard line drives go past him at shortstop (not errors), one on a difficult backhand and another when his momentum was taking him toward the second base bag on a steal attempt. In a normal defensive situation, one or both of those plays could have resulted in an out and limited some of the damage.

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Sophomore Jake McCoy replaced Jerzembeck in the third inning and faced some on-base traffic, as well.

“(Jake) McCoy is going to be a key to our team. If McCoy can really master the strike zone, he’s got a chance to be special in my opinion…” Mainieri didn’t like that his sophomore lefty got squeezed a bit during the scrimmage. The veteran coach called the strike zone “a little tight” while McCoy was on the hill.

However, the veteran head coach was proud of how No. 23 handled himself in the face of on-field adversity. “I thought he had two batters struck out, and then he ended up walking them [both] on the 3-2 pitch. But then he loaded the bases and ended up pitching out of it and struck out three batters, I think. He’s got something special about him.”

Mainieri’s memory was correct. After walking two, McCoy delivered a heavy dose of curveballs to the Air Force hitters. Frankly, the gray and blue-clad visitors could do nothing with the pitches. Despite the early setback, the Fort Mill native struck out the side in the inning.

McCoy’s success didn’t seem to surprise his head coach. Mainieri beamed while saying, “If [McCoy] can really put it together…like I said, Terry has done an amazing job already with a lot of these guys. I think you can put him right on the top of that list. And I think if McCoy ends up really blossoming the way we hope that he can, between he and Jerzembeck at the top of this staff, I think it’s going to set the tone for the rest of the guys and for how we can use them.”

The South Carolina baseball team has another scrimmage upcoming against the College of Charleston Cougars on November 7th in Charleston.

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