A Look At South Carolina's Situational Pitching & Batting Stats Heading Into SEC Play
South Carolina's baseball team is set to begin conference play, so I decided to see where they stood statistically in terms of situational batting and pitching.
Mark Kingston and the South Carolina Gamecocks will enter a new season on Friday night, as they begin SEC play against the Ole Miss Rebels where the talent is more plentiful and the margin for error becomes even smaller than it already is. While Carolina is currently 14-3 and ranked as the 20th best team in the country by D1Baseball.com, the feeling surrounding the team has been mixed from the fanbase, with some being extremely optimistic due to the pitching staff surpassing expectations, while others are concerned with the lack of firepower seen at the plate from most of the lineup.
With all of this in mind, I decided to go and look at some specific stats for South Carolina that apply to both the plate and the mound and see if it would paint a picture of how the team's performed so far, and that's exactly what the numbers did.
Batting
Batting Average w/h Runners On Base: .253
Batting Average w/h Runners In Scoring Position: .235
Batting Average w/h 2 outs: .238
As one can tell from these stats, the batting lineup has struggled to string hits together or go on late half-inning rallies against their competition so far this season. This is concerning due to the fact that the Gamecocks having only faced one opponent with a pulse in a Top 10 Clemson Tigers squad and have professional league bats up-and-down their lineup. This is something that will require holistic adjustments if the team is going to live up to their potential.
Pitching
Strike %: 65.3%
Batting Average w/h Runners On Base: .146
Batting Average w/h Runners In Scoring Position: .135
Batting Average w/h 2 outs: .159
As inconsistent as the bats have been for Carolina, the Gamecock faithful have been treated to a pleasant surprise from their pitching staff, who despite losing five arms to the MLB Draft in 2023, has been off to a tremendous start this Spring. It's a staff that has forced their opponents to beat them to this point, has seen a closer develop in fiery left-hander Garrett Gainey and has a Friday night starter in Eli Jones who can contend with any lineup he goes up against.
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