Resume Check: Looking ahead to South Carolina baseball's next opponent, the Charleston Southern Buccaneers
South Carolina baseball dropped a series this weekend to the Kentucky Wildcats. The road three-game set saw the Gamecocks win one game of a Saturday double-header but get outscored 18-8 in the other two contests. Following the rain-affected weekend, the Gamecocks now own an overall record of 25-20 and a 5-16 mark in SEC play.
Next up, Paul Mainieri’s team will return to Columbia for four home contests. The first one will be a mid-week matchup against the in-state Charleston Southern Buccaneers on Tuesday.
Resume Check: Charleston Southern Buccaneers
Record: 24-16 (10-8 in Big South)
D1Baseball Ranking: N/A
Last Week: 1-3 mid-week loss to The Citadel in Charleston, 2-1 series win over Presbyterian in Clinton
Karl Kuhn is in his first year as the head coach at Charleston Southern. Things have gone pretty well for the Buccaneers as they have already beaten their win total from the entire 2024 season.
This preseason, the Big South’s head coaches projected CSU as a middle-of-the-pack team in the league. However, the Buccos only put two players on the Big South preseason all-conference squad as infielder Chandler Tuupo and starting pitcher Nick Timpanelli earned the honor.
In the actual season, Tuupo has been good, but Kaden Smith has been the team’s top offensive threat. So far, Smith has smacked 11 home runs and eight doubles while logging an OPS number over 1.000. He’s also hit six of those home runs in his last seven games. Lew Rice and Kain Collins have been on-base monsters, each posting .450 OBPs or better.
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On the mound, not much has gone well for Charleston Southern. Tyler Henshaw has been good out of the bullpen, and Ryan DuSang has come on of late (he’s surrendered just one run in his last 11 innings), but everyone else has struggled. The team is walking entirely too many batters, and they’re also giving up an inordinately high amount of hits. It’s not good for team success when the team’s WHIP number is approaching 2.00, and the ERA is over 6.00.
The Buccaneer offense scores a fair amount of runs, but as evidenced by the box scores, they give up a bunch, too. When CSU batters reach base, they are aggressive. Kuhn’s group is not an elite defensive team, either.
South Carolina baseball coach Paul Mainieri hasn’t tipped his hand as to his thoughts on the mid-week pitching plan. Jackson Soucie and Tyler Pitzer have handled most of the recent non-weekend starts. However, both Soucie and Pitzer had unsuccessful relief outings this weekend in which they failed to log an out. Brandon Stone, Jake McCoy, and Dylan Eskew started over the weekend.
The South Carolina Gamecocks and Charleston Southern Buccaneers will begin their showdown at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday. The game will not be on traditional television. However, SEC Network+ will make it available via streaming.
