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South Carolina Series Preview


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Tigers going into Columbia, SC this weekend in search of a few wins to get them off of a three game losing skid. This might be one of the few teams you hope to play on the road this season in the conference. They were swept by Georgia at home to open the conference season, then went to Tennessee and lost two out of three. Of course, both of those are very good ball clubs, but especially if we can take care of business Friday night, Carolina may begin to get a little desperate for SEC wins, and this would play right into our hands. Let's take a look at the Gamecocks. 

 

Offense

South Carolina is the worst team in the SEC in batting average and On-Base Percentage. They simply don't get on base. Here's the kicker though: Carolina leads the SEC in Home Runs.... by a lot. The Gamecocks have hit 42 Home Runs this season, leading the second place team, Ole Miss, by 12. It seems like Carolina swings for the fences on every at-bat, and if they connect, it's a HR. If they don't, it's a strikeout. Seriously. They lead the league in strike outs. 250 on the season. That's 10 strikeouts per game played. They also don't run much when they do get on. They've attempted the fewest stolen bases in the SEC, and when they do run, they're sub-par, only stealing 76% of bases. That's 10th in the league. 

These trends are pretty typical of a big home run hitting team, but that kind of offense can either win a game big, or get you behind by a lot. I expect Carolina to hit a few dingers on us, but if we can keep them off the base paths when it happens, we should be just fine. 

Their best hitters are Jacob Olson and TJ Hopkins, both hitting .327 with 8 and 9 homers respectively. Hopkins is the energy guy, as he's already hit 3 triples this season, and is slugging a cool .673. Olson will homer and double you to death, slugging .694 (!!!!).

Luke Berryhill is another one to watch for as he leads the team in doubles and sluggs .625. He hits .273, and leads the team in OBP at .402, and has hit 6 HRs. Note that all of these guys have hit more home runs that Edouard Julien this season, so they can get a barrell on it. 

The good news is they don't walk much, and they don't get hits much, either. The Gamecocks are last in the SEC in both of these categories, so it seems like throwing some junk on the first pitch and in one sided counts (pitchers' or hitters' counts, they'll be swinging) may get these guys swinging for all they've got and coming up empty. Burns needs to continue to challenge with his fastball location low in the zone, but also needs to mix in some breaking balls outside of the zone to get these guys swinging. I would say Greenhill will need to do the same when he is called upon. I assume we'll go Skipper on Saturday, and then another bullpen day assuming Jack Owen is still unavailable. Their approach needs to be very similar, keep it down and throw some junk every now and again. I think our goal needs to be stay away from high breaking balls as they WILL leave the yard, and take advantage of their swing for the moon mentality. It'll be most important to keep the bases empty for when they do send one out. Don't let one bad pitch lose a ball game just because there were runners on base. 

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Pitching/Defense

Most likely, Carolina's Starters will look like:

 

Friday:    Wesley Sweatt (1-2,     22.1 IP,     4.84 ERA,   11 Ks,    5 BBs,     .264 OPP BA)

Saturday:     Reid Morgan ( 2-0,   38.2 IP,     2.56 ERA,    34 Ks,    4 BBs,     .255 OPP BA)

Sunday:      TJ Shook ( 2-0,     20.1 IP,      2.66 ERA,       31 Ks,     9 BBs,      .189 OPP BA)

 

This one puzzles me a bit. Their top two guys look to be Morgan and Shook, but they have thrown Sweatt on Friday night the first two series of SEC play. Neither Morgan or Shook have thrown on Friday night this season at all. It's possible that Carolina thinks they can get a leg up if they thrown their best two guys on Saturday and Sunday against the #2 and #3 pitchers of the opposing team, but it's puzzling to me why you wouldn't put your best out there to win every game. Whoever they go with, they've got good starters and a few good relievers like Cam Tringali (1-0,   24.2 IP,    1.82 ERA,     27 Ks,      6 BBs,     .212 OPP BA) and Brett Kerry (2-1,    21.1 IP,     2.53 ERA,     34 Ks,     4 BBs,     .195 OPP BA). Their bullpen is pretty deep, but falls off a bit in quality after the guys mentioned above, as 8 other guys have thrown 8.0 innings or more, but none have any better than a 4.32 ERA. 

Overall, SC is not great as a staff relative to the SEC. They're 12th in the league in ERA, opponent batting average, runs given up, and earned runs given up (4.44 ERA,    .250 OPP BA,   130 runs,     111 Earned runs). They're tied for ninth in least amount of walks (90) and 7th in strikeouts (245). They field at a .972 clip which is middle of the road at a tie for eighth. 

To me, they're average at best. They'll throw a few nice arms that'll go for a while, but I don't see a reason why we can't score runs against them. Miss State was one of the better pitching teams in the league, and we put up 23 runs in our series against them, averaging almost 8 runs a game. Need the bats to be alive, but if they are, this won't be the toughest pitching staff we've seen this season, at least according to what they've done so far. 

 

Us

South Carolina likes to hit doubles and home runs. Bad thing is, we give up a lot of doubles. 46 to be exact, good for 4th most in the SEC. We are also privy to give up a few homers, currently tied for 5th in the SEC in that category with 15. Good news is we don't walk many batters, and their batters don't like to walk. We're fifth in the league in not giving up walks (84 on the year) and even after giving up 20 against MSU on Sunday, our ERA hangs around about 3.42, a full point higher than Carolina's. To me, we will have the edge in getting on base and pitching. They will have an advantage in power hitting, but if we can limit that, we'll be in fine shape to win this series.

 

Overall

The SEC is about getting two at home, and taking one on the road. Anytime you can do something better than that, you are really helping yourself. I think the Tigers have a legitimate chance to help themselves out this weekend. They're already kind of "one game up" on that model as they swept Tennessee, and took care of winning one on the road in Starkville. Getting two in Columbia would give them Tigers a really nice cushion with the remaining schedule we have this season. SC will be looking to get back on track, but like I said in the opening paragraph, if the Tigers can come into Columbia and set an early tone for the weekend by taking a lead, and just flat out winning on Friday night, SC could start to get pretty desperate, and that would be a positive for us. I'm pretty confident Tanner will throw well as him being a little off two starts in a row would be an anomaly. Hopefully, Jack Owen can return and get back to form lighting batters up. 

 

PREDICTION: I think Auburn takes two of three in Columbia, and gets back on track a little bit. Carolina relies on the long ball. Auburn relies on pitching and timely hitting. I'll take the ladder. 

 

NOTE: RPI only down to #6 after 3 losses to Miss State and Alabama. Going to, and beating UCF, was really good for that as well as sweeping UT and getting one in Starkville. 

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Not sure what to make of USCe.  Will we tie into a pissed off unit or just a mediocre team?  On Tuesday night they were shut out at home for the first time in over two years by that baseball powerhouse North Carolina A&T.  We could pretty well bury these guys in the conference cellar after just three week of SEC play.  I'm hoping we're catching them at the right time as there is no shortage of talent on that roster and I believe they'll get it figured out sooner or later.

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score please !

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