South Carolina baseball season hits new low after being swept by Florida
At 66 years old and out of coaching for three years, Paul Mainieri took over South Carolina last June and made college baseball sound like landscaping. That if you know what you’re doing, no location or time frame can stop you from turning dirt to turf.
He was not going to build the South Carolina baseball program back up over a few years. He was going to fix it, return it to glory, start competing for championships immediately.
“I don’t have a three-year plan. I don’t have a five-year plan,” Mainieri said in his opening press conference. “I have a one-year plan. There’s talent on this team. I don’t see why we can’t compete for everything. ... There’s not going to be apathy among Carolina fans.”
Which brings us to Sunday at Founders Park. Playing a doubleheader against Florida after rain suspended play on Saturday night, the Gamecocks lost 22-3 in the opening game and 8-0 in the finale. The Gators completed the sweep with ease, almost assuredly ending any chance the Gamecocks (26-23, 5-19 SEC) had at sneaking into an at-large spot in the NCAA Tournament.
If the apathy hasn’t already hit its peak, Sunday might have tipped the scales.
In the opener, South Carolina actually had the tying run at the plate three different times in the seventh inning. And somehow USC lost by 19!
It’s not just that the Gamecocks lost by 19, either, it’s that they were only losing by 11 with two outs in the ninth inning. One out away from finally being able to head to the locker room, to try and flush an ugly two innings and regroup for the second game 50 minutes later.
Then Aydin Palmer walked a batter and, with two outs in the final frame of a game South Carolina was losing by a dozen runs, Mainieri needed to make a pitching change. In came Roman Kimball to end the misery — and, well, it took a while.
He gave up a single, two walks and then — as if a karmic sign from the baseball gods for prolonging the game — Florida’s Brendan Lawson blasted a grand slam over the left-field fence.
It was the microcosm of South Carolina’s season: Just when you think it can’t get worse, it does.
And not only that, but that spectators are almost expecting the worst-case scenario. This is a team that can’t count on anything. Ethan Petry, the Gamecocks’ star slugger, might be out for the season with an injury. In his absence, the Gamecocks still haven’t cracked the cure of clutch-hitting, leaving 13 runners on base in the opener and managing just four hits in the second game.
Its defense, which has been solid in SEC play, allowed four errors on Sunday. And its pitching — well, it hasn’t improved.
In SEC play this season, South Carolina’s ERA is 8.42 — second-worst in the league to only Missouri, which still hasn’t won an conference game.
And at some point there was an argument injuries were to blame — but that time has long passed. Eli Jerzembeck — in the mix to be the opening-day starter — had Tommy John surgery and missed the whole year. Reliever Eddie Copper missed the season because of injury, too.
But that’s it. Sure, Dylan Eskew missed some time with a oblique injury he sustained after getting hit in the head by a ball during pregame batting practice. But Eskew — and everyone not named Jerzembeck and Copper — are healthy and every mound visit Mainieri or pitching coach Terry Rooney still feels like a bad omen.
Is it possible to revamp an entire pitching staff in a year? South Carolina is going to find out.
And if Mainieri didn’t have three- or five-year plans before, new athletic director Jeremiah Donati might want to see them soon.
Upcoming South Carolina baseball schedule
- May 8 at Auburn, 8 p.m. (ESPNU)
- May 9 at Auburn, 7 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
- May 10 at Auburn, 3:30 p.m. (SEC Network)
- May 13 vs. Winthrop, 6:30 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
- May 15 vs. LSU, 7 p.m. (SEC Network)
- May 16 vs. LSU, 7 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
- May 17 vs. LSU, 3 p.m. (SEC Network Plus)
This story was originally published May 4, 2025 at 8:42 PM.
