Weekend recap: What we learned from South Carolina's series sweep of Sacred Heart

The Paul Mainieri era is off and running at South Carolina. The Gamecocks opened the 2025 season with a three-game sweep of Sacred Heart this weekend at Ray Tanner Field at Founders Park.

Here are a few things we learned from watching the Gamecocks for the first time this season.

Great pitching stole the show

From start to finish, South Carolina’s pitching staff dominated Sacred Heart’s lineup. It only allowed three runs, all of which came on Friday, on nine hits over 25 innings. Between nine pitchers who threw this weekend, they combined to strike out 45 batters and only walked four.

The Gamecocks got superb performances from all three starting pitchers, with all going five innings and striking out a total of 27 batters with one walk. None of the starters threw more than 78 pitches, which indicates their arms will be built up to throw more innings over time. But for what it’s worth, this was the best possible outcome.

Join GamecockCentral: $1 per week for the first year

Even the bullpen was fantastic. Outside of Tyler Pitzer, who gave up two runs on Opening Day, the relievers didn’t allow any runs and struck out 18 with three walks. The moment didn’t look too big for freshmen right-handers Ryder Garino and Zach Russell, who each struck out four in their appearances. It also looks like South Carolina has its closer with Brendan “The Bulldog” Sweeney closing out Friday’s 5-3 win. All in all, a good weekend for the pitchers.

Defense looked a lot better

For as good as the pitching was, it helped that South Carolina only made one error on defense this weekend. It came in the first inning of Sunday’s 8-0 win on a ball hit to Nolan Nawrocki that he couldn’t get in front of. But other than that, the Gamecocks were sharp in the field.

One position that was noticeably improved was third base, with KJ Scobey manning the hot corner as Talmadge LeCroy moved back to catcher. As the lone freshman starter, Scobey fielded his position well and made some tougher plays like when any slow rolling ground balls came his way. There was one ball hit between him and Henry Kaczmar that he laid out for and couldn’t get the throw across to first in time. But he looked the part of what Mainieri believed he could be.

There weren’t a lot of crazy plays or anything, mainly because Sacred Heart struck out 45 times. When the ball was put in play, though, the Gamecocks were fielding at a .989 clip, which is very good.

Offensive approach was much different but Mainieri expects better

It’s hard to complain about a series where South Carolina scored 27 runs. The at-bats were solid and showed a lot of discipline at the plate. The Gamecocks walked 21 times and struck out 16. They only struck out, at most, six times on Friday, which is something every fan can be happy about.

But Mainieri wasn’t super happy with the way the offense hit, especially on Sunday with six hits and nine runners left on base. While Sacred Heart’s pitching didn’t hit its spots consistently, which led to a lot of walks, Mainieri wants to see South Carolina swing the bats more when it gets its chances.

Win tickets to USC-Clemson baseball (Sunday game in Columbia)

“I think when you walk so much, it takes a lot of the aggressiveness away from your hitters,” he said. “… We had a lot of pitches to hit and we took a lot of strikes and I wasn’t really overly happy with the way we swung the bats today quite frankly.”

The Gamecocks only hit two homers this weekend, one on Friday by Ethan Petry and one on Sunday by Nathan Hall. It’s not a huge concern that the ball wasn’t flying all over the yard — again, it’s February, and wasn’t warm outside. It was good to see a lot of positive at-bats leading to getting on base. There’s more focus on putting the ball in play and scoring runs, which is what this offense needs to do consistently.

“I’d much rather see us hit than draw free passes,” Mainieri said. “I think the game’s more fun to watch and it’s more fun to play when you’re hitting the ball and running the bases and doing those kinds of things, get the crowd more into the game. I like that.”

Discuss South Carolina baseball on The Insiders Forum!