Baseball Travels to Greenville to Face USC Upstate Tuesday

FOR STARTERS

• South Carolina visits Fluor Field, home of the Greenville Drive, for a Tuesday night (March 19) contest against USC Upstate.
• First pitch is set for 6 p.m. between the Gamecocks and the Spartans.
• Tuesday’s game will be streamed on ESPN+.
• Tuesday’s game also will be on the Gamecock Sports Network presented by Learfield with Cade Crenshaw and Stuart Lake on the call.

SCOUTING USC UPSTATE

• The Spartans come into Tuesday’s game with a 14-7 overall record and a 3-0 mark in Big South play.
• Upstate swept Gardner-Webb this past weekend, including winning Sunday’s matchup 20-2.
• The Spartans are hitting .322 as a team and are led by Jace Rinehart’s .398 average.
• Troy Hamilton has a team-best nine home runs while Grant Sherrod has 29 RBI.
• Upstate will start freshman right Darin Kuskie on Tuesday. He has 13 strikeouts in 9.2 innings pitched. He struck out eight against Tennessee Tech in 4.2 innings on March 12.
• Mike McGuire is in his fifth season as head coach at USC Upstate.  He guided the Spartans to the Big South Tournament championship game in 2023 and a program-record 38 wins last season.

SERIES VS. USC UPSTATE

• Carolina holds a 15-1 series advantage on USC Upstate going into Tuesday’s game.
• The Gamecocks won both meetings last season, winning 19-1 in Greenville on March 8 and 7-2 in Columbia on April 11.
• In the game in March, Cole Messina went 4-for-6 and Gavin Casas drove in five runs as Carolina scored 13 runs in the first three innings.
• Tuesday’s game is the only meeting between the two schools this season.

GAMECOCKS LEAD THE NATION IN WALKS

• Carolina has drawn 159 walks in 20 games this season, which is tied for the national lead in walks with Texas A&M
• Ethan Petry and Talmadge LeCroy lead the team with 18 walks, which is tied for sixth in the SEC.
• The Gamecocks walked 18 times in the 22-6 win over Longwood on March 10. It’s the most dating back to 2005 (first year of game-by-game stats available).
• Carolina’s is averaging 7.95 walks per game.

GAMECOCK ARMS IMPRESS IN FIRST 20

• The South Carolina pitching staff has a 2.90 ERA after 20 games, good for third in both the SEC and the NCAA.
• The Gamecocks have struck out 196 batters in 167.2 innings, led by 19 punchouts from Eddie Copper, Eli Jones, Matthew Becker and Chris Veach.
• The Gamecock opponents are hitting just .201, led by Dylan Eskew’s .186 opponent’s batting average. Garrett Gainey has a .114 opponent’s batting average in 10.1 innings.
• Eli Jones has a 2.22 ERA with 19 strikeouts in 24.1 innings pitched.
• Ty Good has pitched in 13.2 innings and has a 0.66 ERA with 18 strikeouts and a .133 opponent’s batting average.
• The Gamecocks are fifth in the NCAA in hits allowed per nine innings (6.66) and are sixth in team WHIP (1.15).

JONES SOLID IN THE OLE MISS SERIES

• Kennedy Jones was 7-for-12 with three runs scored, two doubles, a home run, two walks and two RBI in the three games at Ole Miss (March 15-17).
• Jones hit his third home run of the season in Saturday’s game, part of a three-hit day where he was a triple short of the cycle.
• He had two hits and a walk in Sunday’s 6-2 win and now has a .388 batting average with a 1.169 OPS.

PETRY: 30 FOR 30

• Sophomore Ethan Petry hit a home run in the fourth inning on Saturday at Ole Miss, which was his 30th career round tripper.
• Petry is now tied for 26th place on Carolina’s all-time home runs list and is the 29th Gamecock to hit 30 or more home runs in a career.
• The last player to achieve that feat was Braylen Wimmer (2020-23), who had 32 career home runs. Wes Clarke (2019-21) also had 32 home runs in his Gamecock career.
• Petry currently is tied with Christian Walker (2010-12), Jackie Bradley Jr. (2009-11) and Jeff Barns (1985-87) for 26th place.

BECKER, GAINEY SHUT IT DOWN ON SUNDAY

• Carolina relievers Matthew Becker and Garrett Gainey were brilliant in Sunday’s 6-2 win over Ole Miss in Oxford.
• Becker pitched 5.1 innings of relief, allowing four hits and two runs with four strikeouts and no walks to earn his fourth win of the season.
• Becker was two outs shy of his career high in innings pitched, set his freshman season against Texas.
• Gainey pitched the final two frames and allow a hit and walk with two strikeouts.
• Gainey has a 0.87 ERA and has 17 strikeouts in 10.1 innings pitched this season.

PROBABLE PITCHING MATCHUP
South Carolina Eddie Copper (Fr. RHP) 1-0, 2.00 ERA, 18.0 IP, 5 BB, 19 K
USC Upstate Darin Kuskie (Fr. RHP) 0-0, 8.38 ERA, 9.2 IP, 11 BB, 13 K

UP NEXT

• The Gamecocks play their first SEC home series this weekend against Vanderbilt.
• Friday’s game begins at 7 p.m. with Saturday and Sunday’s games at 4 and 1:30 p.m., respectively.
• All three games will be on SEC Network Plus.
• Vanderbilt is coming off a three-game sweep of Auburn in Nashville this past weekend.