South Carolina baseball taking new-look offense, thin pitching staff away from home for the first time
For the first time this season, South Carolina is taking the show away from home.
The Gamecocks travel up to Charlotte for a midweek game against App State, the first time this season the new-look offense and thin pitching staff will play a game not in Founders Park.
It’ll be a test for a South Carolina team still figuring itself out. Right now it’s led by a more dynamic offense than last year and a pitching staff dealing with a bevy of injuries.
“The bullpen is the biggest question mark about our team from a media perspective,” Michael Braswell said. “But I believe coach (Justin) Parker is working his butt off and the pitchers are working their butts off to be what we need to be.”
With Julian Bosnic still on the shelf, Josiah Sightler banged up and James Hicks expected at minimum to miss some time, the Gamecocks are going to have to rely heavily on younger arms.
They’ll start senior and junior college transfer CJ Weins. Weins, who started some last season, has tossed two scoreless innings this season with three strikeouts and a walk.
Once Weins is done, the Gamecocks will likely use a host of newcomers and freshmen still getting their feet wet. So far the majority have played well—Aidan Hunter, Cade Austin, Matt Becker, Noah Hall, etc.—but all are still new to the program.
“We’re going to need those guys to grow up fast and continue to throw strikes and trust their stuff and let that defense work behind them,” Mark Kingston said.
The Gamecocks lean more now on a retooled offense showing signs of growth through seven games.
South Carolina is slashing .319/.432/.468 and averaging eight runs per game so far and not operating in its home run or bust type of offense of the last few years.
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They’re getting contributions from returners like Andrew Eyster (.500/.514/.824 and 13 RBI) and Braylen Wimmer (.467/.529/.533). But the new players are helping out as well.
So far this year 11 newcomers, including seven freshmen, have logged at least one plate appearance.
Of those 11, seven have started multiple games. They’re led right now in average by Michael Braswell, who’s slashing .429/568/.643 and has also pitched 1.2 scoreless innings.
“It’s awesome. It’s rare to see this many guys come in and right away make an impact. There’s always a learning curve. But it seems for these guys that learning curve has been shortened a lot,” Eyster said.
“At the end of the day, you can’t just rely on just the upperclassmen. You have to have some of the younger guys come in. That’s part of the equation.”
They’ll have to continue performing well with the Gamecocks starting 12 straight weekends of high-level baseball. After Tuesday they’ll play Clemson this weekend with Texas coming to town after that.
Then they’ll begin league play on the road at Tennessee.
How to watch/listen
TV: SEC Network Plus
Radio: Gamecock Radio Network (Tommy Moody, Stuart Lake)
Probable pitchers (South Carolina listed first)
RHP CJ Weins (0-0, 0.00 ERA) vs. RHP Jason Cornatzer (0-0, 0.00 ERA)
