South Carolina baseball opens fall scrimmages with high expectations
South Carolina opened fall scrimmages Friday afternoon, and as opposed to this time a year ago, Gamecocks coach Chad Holbrook has a good idea about the nucleus of his team.
USC returns seven position players that started at least 29 games last season, two members of last year’s starting rotation, including ace Clarke Schmidt, and the Gamecocks get back 2014 ace Wil Crowe, who missed all of last season after Tommy John surgery.
South Carolina also returns its top three bullpen arms from 2015.
“I feel very, very comfortable with our veteran guys that are back. I think we have the makings to have a pretty darn good team,” Holbrook said. “We’re going to have to do all the other things right, work hard and continue to improve this fall, but we’ve got some guys that I think are pretty good at playing baseball.”
USC entered last fall needing to replace six position starters, two-thirds of its rotation and without a closer, coming off a season in which the Gamecocks missed the NCAA tournament.
“I sit up here this September a little bit more comfortable knowing what we have maybe than a year ago because there were so many unknowns last year with a lot of new players,” Holbrook said. “This year we have some returning guys that I feel are very gifted and have done some good things for us up to this point.”
PLENTY OF OPTIONS
While several positions are already decided for the 2017 season, Holbrook has plenty of options at shortstop.
LT Tolbert, Madison Stokes, Justin Row and Jacob Olson were mentioned as options to replace Marcus Mooney.
Whichever players don’t win the starting shortstop job could end up playing elsewhere in the field.
“Those four guys are going to get some time at short and we’ll let those guys battle it out and then kind of narrow it down,” Holbrook said. “A couple of those guys are obviously very versatile and can play a number of different positions. Out of those four all of them might be on the field at the same time once the spring gets here because they’re all pretty good players.”
THREE’S COMPANY
South Carolina has three options at catcher that Holbrook likes in Chris Cullen, John Jones and Hunter Taylor.
Jones and Cullen each started more than 40 games, while Taylor played well late in the year and was named to the Columbia All-Regional Team in the NCAA Tournament.
“I love all three of them. ... I feel good about any one of them, and any one of them could catch Opening Day,” Holbrook said. “I think we have three gifted catchers, and they’re in many ways from a position player standpoint the heart and soul of the team.”
ON THE MOVE?
Earlier this week, the ACC announced that it will move the football championship game and women’s basketball tournament out of North Carolina because of North Carolina’s House Bill 2, which limits antidiscrimination protections for the LGBT community.
Holbrook was asked if the South Carolina-North Carolina baseball game scheduled to be played in the spring in Charlotte would be moved, and said that decision will be made by AD Ray Tanner, School President Harris Pastides and the Board of Trustees.
“That’s for some jurisdiction way over my head. ... President Pastides and Coach Tanner are guys that I know are having dialogue about that important issue. Right now it’s my job to get my team prepared to play for the 2017 season and that’s what my focus is going to be this fall,” Holbrook said. “Our university is all about inclusion. We want to be as diverse as we possibly can be. … That issue is a very sensitive issue.”
FAMILIAR FACE
Former South Carolina star Michael Roth pitched two innings in USC’s scrimmage and allowed one hit, a bloop single to John Jones.
Roth went 11-5 with a 2.97 ERA in Triple-A in the Rangers organization this season.
This story was originally published September 17, 2016 at 1:52 AM.