South Carolina hits the road to play Ole Miss in Oxford. The teams play at 7:30 pm on Friday, 3:00 pm on Saturday on SportSouth and 2:30 pm on Sunday.
The Rebels are coming off a tough weekend in Gainesville. They were swept but are still very much alive in the SEC West. 9-12 is only one game out of first in the West. The Rebels have lost 4 in a row and 6 of their last 7.
Can the Gamecocks fight off a Rebel upset? (Or should we call them the Black Bears?)
Batting: The Rebels are ninth in the conference in batting with a .279 team average, but they can hit for power. Ole Miss is fourth in the conference with 33 home runs. When they get on, the Rebels don’t run much: they are 11th in the conference in steal attempts. The only team that tries to steal less is South Carolina.
Observant Gamecock fans will remember some of the better Rebels from last year. Sophomore Center fielder Tanner Mathis is leading the team in batting with a .343 average. Second baseman Alex Yarborough is not far behind at a healthy .333. Yarborough also has 5 home runs and 29 RBI. After that, the rest of the line up drops off to Blake Newalu at .310 and Matt Smith at .300. This isn’t one of the strongest line ups we’ve seen, and isn’t as strong as Auburn this past weekend.
Pitching: The Rebels pitching staff is pretty average overall. They are middle of the road in terms of ERA with 4.18. Opponents are batting .275 against them which is also fairly pedestrian. Matt Crouse, David Goforth and Austin Wright will probably form the weekend rotation. Crouse is the ace of the staff with a 3.41 ERA and a 6-3 record. He has a strikeout to walk ratio of 4 to 1, though that is more a function of his tendency not to walk people because he averages barely over 1/2 strikeout an inning. Goforth and Wright have similar numbers. They have ERAs of 4.79 and 4.96 respectively. Both have strikeout to walk ratios of a little better than 2 to 1. Gamecock fans should also be familiar with Brett Huber and Bobby Wahl, two oft used relievers who have 7 saves between them.
What the Gamecocks need: USC is sitting pretty for a national seed. Barring a complete collapse, they should be in good shape. If they want to keep pace with Vanderbilt and Florida, they’ll need to win at least two and maybe three. That being said, winning two out of three on the road is a great accomplishment. No one should go into this series thinking sweep. If Carolina wins the first two games, then you can start to think about it. Otherwise, that’s too much to ask on the road. Just take care of business.
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