South Carolina trying to stay positive during stretch run
Mark Kingston and South Carolina know exactly where the Gamecocks stand with two weeks left in the season.
It’s been a rough one for South Carolina for a variety of reasons, sitting at just one game above .500 with seven games to play.
Faltering down the stretch could mean the Gamecocks miss the SEC Tournament altogether and potentially suffer its first overall losing season since 1996.
“There’s no magic formula at this point. Baseball is a marathon,” Kingston said. “This is just another mile in that marathon. It’s all about who plays the best baseball at this point. There are no magic tricks to pull out at this point. You just want your guys to play better than their guys.”
South Carolina sits right now at No. 66 in the RPI entering this weekend, well out of any at-large case.
Kingston said he’s a little disappointed it’s so low given a top-10 strength of schedule and No. 41 ELO, a Warren Nolan metric.
South Carolina is 13-19 in Quad I and II games but have a few Quad III and IV losses weighing the resume down.
“At the end of the day you have to win a lot of games,” Kingston said. “At the end of the day, our strength of schedule is one of the best in the country but we let some games slip away we generally don’t let slip away. That’s what you look at why the RPI is where it is.”
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Because of where the Gamecocks sit in the SEC and in most metrics, it’s going to take a Herculean effort to get into the field of 64 in a few weeks.
They have seven games left, four at home, with a three-game series against Kentucky starting Friday.
“You think about it a little bit. You try to not give it too much attention to it,” Josiah Sightler said. “We know whatever happens is going to happen. We have to stay together as a team. The wins will come. And whatever happens, happens.”
South Carolina will try and do it by staying status quo with the pitching rotation.
Brett Thomas (0-1, 6.75 ERA) starts Friday night followed by Noah Hall (2-4, 4.93 ERA) and Will Sanders (7-2, 3.87 ERA) to end the year.
“We looked at some different options and moving some guys around,” Kingston said. “At the end of the day, based on a lot of external factors and internal factors we’re dealing with right now with some guys we felt the best thing to do was stay status quo. After we see the results of this weekend we can re-evaluate going into Florida.”
South Carolina (24-23, 10-14 SEC) will likely need to go 6-1 in that stretch with a 5-1 record in SEC play to even have a modicum of a chance to get into the NCAA Tournament.
“For a college baseball player this is the best time of the year. You’re playing baseball, the games matter; you don’t have to go to class,” Kingston said. “That’s enough motivation in and of itself. Then the fact we have a lot to play for and there’s still something there if we get hot is all the motivation we need.”
