What we know about South Carolina baseball heading into Clemson week
Paul Mainieri is slowly getting integrated at South Carolina and into rivalry culture.
The 67-year-old coach has been getting acclimated to Columbia with the two words that his predecessors heard and his successors will hear: Beat Clemson.
“I’m like, ‘We’re in the SEC. Come on. It’s the third weekend of the season,’ ” Mainieri said. “No matter what happens on the weekend, there’s a lot of baseball ahead of us. All of our goals will be firmly in front of us.”
He is right, and yet there is a significance of beating Clemson that is greater than winning a baseball series in February. That may become clear next weekend, when the Gamecocks (8-0) play two games in the Upstate before closing out the series on Sunday at Founders Park.
Following a 14-4, eight-inning victory Sunday over Milwaukee, the Gamecocks will face Gardner-Webb on Tuesday before turning its attention to the Tigers (6-1).
Here are three things we know about South Carolina heading into Clemson week:
South Carolina has proved it can win close games
OK, there’s a valid response to this logic. Winning close games means you’re playing in close games, which means you aren’t blowing out these mid-major non-conference opponents.
Sure, that’s fair. Through eight games, South Carolina has won just three of its eight games this season by eight or more runs — and two by run-rule.
On Opening Day against Sacred Heart, USC was tied heading to the seventh before winning by two. It was down midway through its game at Winthrop before coming out on top. It was up 3-2 against Queens before blowing the game open in the eighth. The Gamecocks needed a Jase Woita grand slam to beat Milwaukee on Friday.
“The more you win these close games when you’re tested,” Mainieri said after the Queens victory, “the more your confidence grows. ... You start to believe at the end of games that you’re gonna get it done.”
A year ago, South Carolina went into the Clemson series just thumping teams. Though it had an ugly loss to Belmont on its resume, half of its victories were by run-rule and only one of its wins was by fewer than six runs.
It hadn’t played a close game all year. So when the USC finally got in a tight battle, it faltered. They lost last year’s opener to Clemson in extra innings by one run at Segra Park, then again lost at Clemson the next day, again by one run. (The series was shortened to two games because of rain.)
Will this year be different? Time will tell. But the Gamecocks already seem comfortable in moments of adversity, showing themselves as a team that gets into a close game wondering how they’ll pull it out rather than thinking about how they’ll lose.
Gamecocks’ pitching has been superb, but injuries are looming
Leading up to the season, Mainieri would preface almost answer about the pitching staff with a statement along the lines of, Well, we don’t have any 98 mph flamethrowers but I really like our depth.
That’s not exactly what you want to hear. Every team wants that Friday-night ace it can count on for a stress-free win. But so far for the Gamecocks, their pitching depth has been so great that it feels like Mainieri already has about eight or nine arms he’d trust at any point. That might be more valuable than the Friday flamethrower.
Through two weeks, the South Carolina pitching staff has combined for an ERA of 2.09 with 99 strikeouts and 21 walks in 69 innings.
The only concern: The depth is already being tested. Earlier this week, Mainieri announced that sophomore Eli Jerzembeck, who was in the mix to be the Opening Day rotation, will miss the entire season with a stress fracture in his elbow. Not long after, Friday-night starter Dylan Eskew left the game with a back strain, though he was able to play catch the next day.
Eskew’s availability is still unknown for the Clemson series. Regardless, the Gamecocks will have immense confidence in their other two starters, Matthew Becker and Jake McCoy. In four combined starts, the two have allowed just five total runs while striking out 34 batters.
South Carolina’s bats have been coming along slowly
Heading into Sunday, the Gamecocks’ offense was a two-man show. If Ethan Petry or Nathan Hall didn’t get on base, didn’t bring home a run, didn’t score a run — well, the odds weren’t great than anyone else would.
Through two weeks, Petry and Hall are just two of four guys to start every game for USC. They are also the only pair of regular starters to be hitting over .350 (they’re both hitting over .420), have double-digit hits and at least seven RBIs. To count on South Carolina scoring runs was to count on either Petry or Hall — or both — to make something happen.
The problem is not with making contact. Through eight games, South Carolina has only stuck out 52 times, a more impressive number considering that Clemson has struck out 60 times in one fewer game. The issue was South Carolina just wasn’t finding gaps. And playing in cold temperatures, USC wasn’t getting the ball out of the park.
On a warm Sunday, that changed, The Gamecocks exploded for 13 hits and home runs by Ryan Bakes and Nolan Nawrocki.
“We’ve been hitting balls hard all week — this week, last week — but they’re just starting to fall,” Bakes said.
Added Mainieri: “The important thing was just for the kids to take an aggressive approach and not lose their confidence. I felt all along we had a good lineup and the hitting would come eventually.”
This story was originally published February 23, 2025 at 5:48 PM.
