Know Your Baseball Enemy: Florida (again)

South Carolina begins a three game series against Florida for the National Championship.  This series will be a rematch of the series between the Gators and the Gamecocks in Gainesville in late March.  South Carolina won that series two games to one, but plenty has changed since then.

Some of the Carolina players have alluded to that series as a turning point in the season.  Florida was number one at the time and that series was the first time many thought this year’s South Carolina baseball team could have a special season (i.e. CWS run).

That series was also a turning point for the Florida pitching staff.  On Saturday Hudson Randall turned into a performance that secured his place as the number 1 pitcher on the team.  Randall pitched a complete game in which he allowed only 5 hits and 1 unearned run.  After that, he became the Friday starter, and he is the guy the Gamecocks will see first on Monday night.

Gator Starting Pitching:  Florida has 4 legitimate starters, 3 of which have been Friday night aces.  Hudson Randall is their current ace, and he will pitch on Monday.  Brian Johnson, the Friday night starter the beginning of the season, had an injury, but is ready to go now.  Alex Panteliodis, last year’s Friday starter, pitched several mid week games before rejoining the weekend rotation when Johnson got hurt.  The fourth member of the starting pitching staff is freshman Karsten Whitson.  Whitson was the ninth overall pick in the MLB draft last year.  Here are their numbers.

Gator Relievers:  Florida has a talented and deep bullpen.  They will often play match-ups, so there is almost always a fresh arm in the game.  If one of the starters gets in trouble early, the Gamecocks could see another starter relieve him since there will be at most three games, and they have four starters.  Here are the relievers numbers.

Gamecock Starting Pitching:  South Carolina’s rotation has been changed around some in the post season.  Rather than the usual Roth – Koumas – Holmes rotation, the regional was Roth – Holmes – Koumas.  In the super regional it was only Roth and Holmes.  Thus far in the college world series it has been Roth – Holmes – Roth.  Forrest Koumas is likely to start Monday’s game.  If the Gamecocks win, Colby Holmes is almost guaranteed to start the Tuesday game and Roth on Wednesday if necessary.  If Tuesday’s game is an elimination game for USC then Roth might pitch on short rest.

Gamecock Relievers:  The Gamecocks undisputed closer is Matt Price.  He threw nearly 100 pitches on Friday night and is almost certainly unavailable for the Monday night game.  He will probably be available for Tuesday and Wednesday.  John Taylor is the set up man and long reliever.  He is available for Monday and would probably close if there was an opportunity for that.  The Gamecocks will also play match ups out of the pen.  Jose Mata and Tyler Webb are the most likely to see action, but Bryan Harper, Patrick Sulivan and Steven Neff are possibilities too.

Florida Batting:  Some people think this Florida line-up is the most gifted batting order in the country.  They might be right.  The numbers speak for themselves.  Here are the best.

Gamecock Batting:  The USC line up hasn’t gotten the hype that Florida’s has, but here the Gamecocks are in the national championship game.  Jackie Bradley’s recent return has been a boon for the offense.  Production doesn’t always come from the same place, but it has come from many places.

Florida is the favorite in this game.  They were also the favorite in Gainesville.  It should be a close series with good pitching, but if the pitching falters for either team, the offenses are good enough to blow one or more of the games open.

I assume most of our readers are familiar with the Gamecocks’ statistics.  For those who aren’t, they are here.