Playing baseball in the SEC is a weekly struggle.
As it stands, half of its teams rank No. 11 or above in the country, meaning if your team resides in it, you’re basically facing one of the nation’s best teams every other week.
Such has been the case for No. 1 LSU over the past few weeks.It opened its conference schedule with Texas A&M, who ranked No. 11 at the time but has since fallen out of the polls. Then, it faced No. 5 Arkansas and No. 11 Tennessee in back-to-back weekends.
The Tigers were able to escape each series relatively unscathed, dropping one game in each but ultimately winning each of them to maintain their No. 1 spot. If preseason expectations had been more accurate, they would have escaped their first tough stretch of SEC play and be amidst a two-week “break” period.
Their next two conference opponents, South Carolina and Kentucky were slated in the bottom half of On3’s preseason power rankings and projected to finish with losing records in SEC play. In those same projections, the Gamecocks, who host the Tigers this weekend, were predicted to win just 27 games this season.
Entering this weekend’s matchup, at practically the midpoint of the regular season, they’re 26-3 and have yet to lose at home, a worrisome statistic considering the previous paragraph.
“They’re playing with a ton of confidence,” LSU head coach Jay Johnson said on the latest rendition of the Jay Johnson radio show. “I think they’re 8-1 in league, so that means they’ve won all their series.”
They’ve done this through success on both sides of the field, possessing the batting room with the most home runs in the country to go along with one of the best pitching roomsin terms of overall ERA.
As of Tuesday morning, 64 batters in the entire country had hit 10 or more homeruns on the season.Three of those came from the South Carolina roster in Gavin Casas (15), Ethan Petry (13) and Will McGillis (10). Petry also possesses a top-25 batting average at .439 and should be in contention for SEC freshman of the year come May.
The pitching staff has had similar success, even after being forced to temporarily take their best pitcher out of the lineup. Projected first-round draft pick Will Sanders currently has a 5.17 ERA through 31 innings this season, a rough statistic that notably hasn’t shaken up the Gamecocks, who’s overall ERA sits just under 3.00.
He will start on Thursday versus the Tigers, but they do not lack the depth to relieve him if he struggles. Noah Hall won SEC pitcher of the week in early March and its bullpen containsthree guys that have pitched over 25 innings with ERAs under 3.00, including their Friday starter in Jack Mahoney.
When it comes to comparing pitchers, LSU obviously has the best in Skenes, but South Carolina can compete with its depth and has a better overall ERA than the Tigers. Johnson acknowledged their success on the mound and was impressed with its ability to adapt to Sanders’ struggles.
“They’re guys have been throwing well,” Johnson said on their pitchers. “Every time I see an SEC pitcher of the week or freshman of the week, if it’s not Paul Skenes as pitcher of the week, I’ve seen a couple of their guys pop up there.”
The Gamecocks are coming off arguably their most impressive performances of the season, one where they shut out No. 13 North Carolina and held them to just six hits in 33 appearances at bat. But considering LSU’s recent success against one of the best pitching staffs in the country versus Tennessee, Johnson isn’t too concerned.
“We competed well against a major-league pitching staff in my opinion, at least those top-five pitchers for Tennessee,” Johnson said. “We’ve certainly got guys that are capable of doing it.”
They certainly do, though South Carolina certainly poses an intriguing challenge. It’s had a lucky draw to start SEC play, one reason why it possesses an 8-1 SEC record, but that win over the Tar Heels and its 25 others indicate it has the consistency to compete with the best in conference.
The series kicks off at 6 p.m. CT on Thursday. Considering how hot each team has been to start conference play, this should be an exciting series.
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