Ethan Petry injury update: Paul Mainieri delivers grim outlook for South Carolina star

South Carolina is likely to be without star slugger Ethan Petry for a critical stretch to close the 2025 season. Gamecocks coach Paul Mainieri revealed after Petry missed a contest against Charleston Southern on Tuesday that the outfielder suffered a strained AC joint in his left shoulder during last week’s series vs. Kentucky.

Mainieri estimated the recovery from that sort of injury to be around 2-4 weeks, which could potentially mean that Petry is done for the year. The Gamecocks have a little more than two weeks remaining in the regular season before the SEC Tournament begins on May 20.

“He’s got what they call a strain of the AC joint in his left shoulder,” Mainieri said of Petry. “It was such a freak injury. If you watch the video of it, the ball took a bounce and he was ready to play it and when it took that funny bounce, he kind of accelerated to field the ball and rammed his left shoulder into the wall.

“That injury, it’s probably 2-4 weeks to heal. So there’s a good chance that he’s done for the year. Maybe he could get back for the last series or the SEC Tournament. We’ll have to see.”

If Ethan Petry is done for the season, it would leave South Carolina (26-20, 5-16 SEC) without one of its best hitters and facing an uphill battle to earn an NCAA Tournament bid. Petry leads the team in home runs (10) this year and is second with a batting average of .329.

The junior has 54 home runs for his career, which puts him just eight shy of tying Justin Smoak for the school record. He could return for his senior season to break that record or go into the MLB Draft, where he ranks as the No. 36 overall prospect according to MLB.com.

The Gamecocks have three SEC series left this season against Florida, Auburn and LSU. Perhaps if all goes well, the earliest Petry will be back on the field is by the series against the Tigers, which begins May 15.

Mainieri also updates injury to Nathan Hall

Petry wasn’t the only Gamecocks player missing from the lineup Tuesday evening. Nathan Hall, who leads the team with a .345 batting average and 37 RBIs to go with seven home runs, was also out as South Carolina managed a 5-3 win.

Mainier also addressed his absence to the media, explaining that he had aggravated a heel injury. However, he expects him to be back for the series against Florida this weekend.

“In Nathan’s case, remember when he hurt his heel at Texas A&M going after a home run ball?” the coach explained. “He whacked his heel and it’s never really completely gone away and it probably won’t until he rests it completely. This past weekend, Kentucky has an articificial turf field and it’s particularly hard. There’s not a sand base to it. I worried about his heel pounding on that hard ground all weekend. About two-thirds of the way through the game on Sunday, I could start to see him limping when he’d run out to center field for a new inning. So I wasn’t really surprised on Monday when he couldn’t run at all.

“We practiced on Monday and he couldn’t participate. So I didn’t expect it to be much better by today. I almost put him in as a pinch hitter at one point and just have him jog to first base, but the situation ended up not calling for it. So he’s taking batting practice and everything. We’ve just gotta see how it feels over the next couple of days. Hopefully a couple days rest and it’ll be feeling better for him by Friday.”