Another injury forces South Carolina to shuffle rotation against top-ranked Vandy
Who: South Carolina (24-20, 5-16 SEC) vs. No. 4 Vanderbilt (35-9, 15-6 SEC)
When: 7 p.m. Friday, 8 p.m. Saturday and 1:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: Founders Park
Watch: Streaming online on SEC Network Plus via WatchESPN on Friday and Sunday, then televised on ESPNU on Saturday
Radio: 107.5 FM in Columbia area
Yet another pitching injury
Sophomore TJ Shook, who has been South Carolina’s de facto Sunday starter as of late, will “very likely” miss the rest of the season after reaggravating a back injury he suffered in high school in last weekend’s game against Missouri, coach Mark Kingston announced Thursday.
Shook’s injury is just the latest in a string to devastate the Gamecock staff. Freshman Julian Bosnic, sophomore Logan Chapman and senior Graham Lawson all entered the season out after undergoing Tommy John surgery.
Senior Ridge Chapman went down in the first series of the year with a forearm strain and hasn’t pitched since, sophomore Carmen Mlodzinski broke a bone in his foot against Clemson and junior Hayden Lehman has been missing since the start of conference play. None are expected to return by the end of the season.
That leaves just 11 healthy pitchers available for pitching coach Skylar Meade.
“It’s frustrating for everybody, coaches, players, fans, administration, everybody,” Kingston said of the injury bug. “It’s frustrating, but again, how you handle adversity I think says a lot about you. So our job through the great times and through the tough times is to try to handle it in the right way, and we’ll continue to do that.”
Rotation re-shuffle
The loss of Shook prompted Kingston to move around his weekend rotation — freshman Daniel Lloyd will go on Friday against Vandy, likely backed up by several middle relievers, while junior Reid Morgan will slide back to Saturday.
“With Shook now being out, that opened up a spot with us not having a Tuesday game this week and having some success with that format against the North Carolina and NC States, kinda going to start Danny Lloyd but also getting other guys in the game, we’ve had some success with that, so we thought, let’s give that a shot on Friday and then go Reid Morgan,” Kingston said. “And then obviously TBA is announced, but if (Cam Tringali) is not used (Friday) it’ll most likely be him on Sunday.”
Getting their shots
With South Carolina’s NCAA tournament chances fading just as Omaha contender Vanderbilt comes to town, Kingston has said he’d like to use this weekend to potentially evaluate some players who fans haven’t seen as much of this season.
“You’ll probably see (freshman Josiah) Sightler out there in the outfield a little bit and there’s maybe one or two other guys that will get a little bit more playing time than what we’re used to because again we need to figure out what we have as well,” Kingston said. “Some guys have gotten more at-bats than others to varying levels of success and so we may get a couple more guys some opportunities and see what they’re made of.”
Sightler, one of the most highly touted recruits in his class, has struggled in his rookie season, going 1-for-22 at the plate in just 14 appearances. He starred locally at Swansea High and will play for the Lexington County Blowfish summer league team for 2019.
This story was originally published May 2, 2019 at 3:19 PM.
