Baseball set to take on Charleston Southern, Citadel
After a dominant start to the season, the South Carolina baseball team is reeling.
The Gamecocks have lost two consecutive SEC series and four of their last six games, but with two mid-week contests on the docket, head coach Chad Holbrook is looking for his team to right the ship against Charleston Southern and The Citadel.
“I don’t think we’ve swung the bats well,” Holbrook said. “We’ve got to dust ourselves off and get back to work; and see if we can play better.”
South Carolina’s first tilt will be a Tuesday night matchup with the Charleston Southern Buccaneers at Carolina Stadium.
CSU is an unassuming 18-20 with a 4-11 mark in the Big South Conference, but the Buccaneers’ active bats could pose a threat to the Gamecock pitching staff. Charleston Southern ranked 14th among division one teams in hits with 346 before the weekend, and currently amassed 383.
South Carolina’s pitchers look to be well equipped to handle the threat, ranking second in the nation as a staff in earned run average at 1.82. And after a weekend that saw the Gamecocks give up 11 total runs, Holbrook said he isn’t worried about his staff.
“Our starting pitching pitched their rear ends off and they pitched their heart out,” Holbrook said. “And we don’t have a win to show for it, and some of that responsibility — a lot of it — is mine.”
Junior Evan Beal will most likely get the ball on the mound to start Tuesday’s game after turning in several strong mid-week outings in a row. After being sidelined for the early part of the season with a back injury, the righty has amassed a 1.69 ERA in three starts and has only allowed five hits and two runs.
South Carolina’s second game of the week will see the Gamecocks travel to Charleston to settle a contest with The Citadel that was postponed back in March.
The Bulldogs are 14-23 overall with a 2-13 record in Southern Conference play. But despite the lackluster record, The Citadel’s resume includes several impressive wins. The Bulldogs opened the season 2-0 with wins over Virginia Tech and No. 10 Louisville, and they earned a series victory over Nebraska, winning two-out-of-three.
In this week’s two games against Charleston schools, several Gamecocks are questionable with injuries that sidelined them during the Florida series. Sophomore second baseman Max Schrock has been suffering from a lingering illness and junior third baseman Joey Pankake is dealing with a hamstring injury.
While Holbrook didn’t rule the two out, he said the team must be ready to play without them.
South Carolina baseball is in the midst of what is decidedly its toughest stretch of the season, and the team is scrambling to come up with answers that could put the skid to an end.
But Holbrook said it’s far from time to hit the panic button, citing the culture of the program and its history of postseason success as reasons to still be optimistic. And with the Gamecocks now sitting at No. 2 in the SEC East for the first time this season, two games against nonconference foes could be just the tune-up South Carolina needs.
“We all know what this program’s about and our guys respond to adversity,” Holbrook said. “When our backs are against the wall, so to speak, we tend to play our best. So that’s what I hope to see and that’s what I think I will see.”