Resume Check: Looking ahead to South Carolina baseball's next opponent, the Winthrop Eagles
South Carolina baseball followed up its ugly sweep against Florida last weekend with a somehow-worse shellacking from the Auburn Tigers. The Gamecocks surrendered double-digit runs in all three games as they lost by a total run tally of 46-15, including a worst-since-1997 24-2 beatdown in the series opener.
Paul Mainieri’s team will have the luxury of a mid-week contest this week to attempt to clear their heads. For the second time in 2025, South Carolina will take on the in-state Winthrop Eagles. This time, though, instead of driving up I-77 to Rock Hill, the Gamecocks will host the contest at Founders Park in Columbia. It will be the team’s final mid-week game of the regular season.
Resume Check: Winthrop Eagles
Record: 27-25 (11-10 in Big South play)
D1Baseball Ranking: N/A
Last Week: 3-6 mid-week loss vs. The Citadel in Charleston; series sweep (loss) to Radford in Radford
Previous Meeting: South Carolina beat Winthrop 5-3 in Rock Hill back in February
Winthrop is a much-improved team from 2024. Despite getting swept this past weekend, Mike McGuire has the Eagles playing above .500 ball in-conference. Vibes are much better in Rock Hill than last year when they finished second-to-last in the Big South.
Preseason Big South Player of the Year Kobe Kropf has been good but not great for the offense. However, several other Eagles have stepped up this season. Freshman Josh Skowronski has been the best bat, logging an impressive 1.049 OPS with 11 home runs and 10 stolen bases. Skowronski is one of five Winthrop regulars with on-base percentages of .425 or better. Chazz Grossington, Gabe Natividad, Jaylen Hernandez, and Chris Chronis are the others. As a team, McGuire’s group doesn’t hit the ball out of the yard much (27 of their 46 homers have come off the bats of Kropf, Skowronski, and Ethan Wilson), but they still are the third-best offense in their conference.
On the mound, things haven’t been pretty for Winthrop. They’ve maintained their overall and Big South winning records in spite of a team ERA of 6.66. Reliever Ben Rehkow is the only pitcher having a decent year. He owns a 3.74 ERA and has more strikeouts than innings pitched. Starter Connor Harris has gotten hit hard this year, but he almost never walks guys, surrending just eight free passes in 62.2 innings pitched.
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In a bit of a statistical oddity, Winthrop takes a lot of HBPs. In fact, the Eagles occupy three of the top nine spots in the Big South in the statistic, including No. 1 (Natividad) and No. 2 (Hernandez).
South Carolina baseball coach Paul Mainieri hasn’t announced his mid-week starter yet. The Gamecocks threw Brandon Stone, Jake McCoy, and Dylan Eskew over the weekend. Jarvis Evans and Ashton Crowther also threw multiple innings of relief against Auburn.
The South Carolina Gamecocks and Winthrop Eagles will take the field at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday. The game will not be on traditional television, but SEC Network+ will make it available via streaming.
