South Carolina Baseball: Crushing Baseballs and Records; How to Watch this Weekend
By Kevin Miller
The South Carolina baseball team is still undefeated at 5-0. They are the last undefeated team in the SEC East, but that feels like about the fifth most-impressive Gamecock achievement through the season’s first five games.
The YardCocks are DESTROYING the baseball right now. Each game, they shatter the school record for most home runs, RBI, and runs through “x-number” of games to start the season. They have scored in double figures in all five contests this season, three in a weekend series against the UMass-Lowell River Hawks, one mid-week game against the Winthrop Eagles, and another against the Queens University Royals. The last time they had even accomplished that through four consecutive games was in 1987. The Gamecocks are also averaging 15 runs per outing, an absolutely outrageous number. Word is that activists have launched protests against the South Carolina baseball team’s bats for the physical abuse they are administering to cowhide products.
Through five games, the Gamecocks have slugged 20 home runs, which is 4 more than the second-place Wake Forest Demon Deacons and 7 more than the Texas State Bobcats who sit in third nationally. Gavin Casas, the younger brother of Red Sox first baseman Triston Casas and a transfer from Vanderbilt, leads the way with 4 bombs. Star infielder Braylen Wimmer, former Southern Miss Golden Eagle Will McGillis, returning catcher Cole Messina, and true freshman Ethan Petry each have hit 3 dingers, themselves (McGillis had a fourth home run brought back by a spectacular play in left field by the Royals’ Nick Brassington). Caleb Denny almost made this list as he has hit two big flys and knocked another double off the wall.
This weekend’s series against the Penn Quakers will be a slightly stiffer test than the first five games have been. Penn put 10 players on the All-Ivy League teams last season and has three infielders and a starting pitcher expected to be on the first-team of the All-Ivy team this season. Surely the scoring will slow down for the Gamecocks, and that will likely begin this weekend. South Carolina baseball fans wouldn’t mind if the otherworldly power hitting continued just a bit longer, though.
The series against Penn will be aired on the SECNetwork+ and the ESPN App. Game 1’s start time is set for Friday at 4:00 EST, Game 2’s first pitch will be Saturday at 2:00 EST, and the series finale on Sunday will begin at 1:30 EST. The series will be played at home at Founder’s Park.