The Yardcocks, winners of eight in a row, take on the Volunteers for the second of three at 4:00 today. Sam Dyson starts for Carolina and Aaron Tullo (0-0 and 3.52 ERA) for the Vols. Can Carolina break out the bats and take the series? Let's hope so.

We can also chat about our tourney brackets here. The bracket-busting St. Mary's Gaels just pulled off another upset, this time over the Villanova Wildcats. There are some other interesting games this afternoon, including the surprising Ohio Bobcats vs. the Tennessee Volunteers. I'm going with Tennessee in that one. In the other games, I'm going with Murray St., Kansas, Washington, Baylor, Kansas St., and Kentucky. Unfortunately, a good bit of my original brackets are already busted, but what can you do? I know you didn't pick Ohio to beat Georgetown...

The Gamecocks host the Tennesee Volunteers today in Columbia. Blake Cooper starts for Carolina and Bryan Morgado starts for the Vols. Morgado has been beaten up a little bit from time to time (5.00+ ERA), so it will interesting to see how good we can get the bats going.

Chat about the game in the open thread.

Brown: increasingly the tint to our season 

Spring break 2010 got off to a less than auspicious start when the Gamecocks, needing a win on Sunday to take the series, dropped a 19-6 decision to the Team from the Upstate. The 13 point loss is the largest in Carolina Stadium history and the largest since the Tigers beat USC 10-2 in their last trip to Carolina Stadium on April 22, 2009. I hope this isn't the start of an unfortunate trend.

Pressing on to more sunny matters, USC stealed its resolve to finish Spring Break week on a 5-0 run. Of course, the oppenents for this week consisted of Valparaiso (3-6) and Brown (1-6) . But pay no attention to that Win/Loss record behind the curtain.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not sounding the alarm bells yet. Clemson and ECU are both great teams, and losing a series to them doesn't indicate that we'll miss the post season this year. Clemson managed to sweep one of the ACC's most prolific offenses in NC State. We were a couple of runs from taking both of those series. Then again, we were also a couple of runs from being swept in both of those series...

More concerning is that we needed extra innings to take the third game from Brown 6-5 on Sunday. Outscoring Brown University by a talley of 24 - 16 doesn't exactly indicate the prolific offense or the overpowering pitching staff that we were rumored to have pre-season. More bothersome, still, is that Ray Tanner felt it necesarry to send Jackie Bradley, Jr. to steal second during Saturday's second game. Bradley, who was already back a few weeks early from an injury that was supposed to keep him out 4-6 weeks, re-injured his hand (he was out on the throw, by the way). Who knows how long Bradley will be out now that we really need his services, even as we start SEC play with a series against Tennessee this weekend. That one's on you, coach.

Also on Coach Tanner was a horific double steal attempt that made my eyes bleed in the second Saturday game. Runners were sent from both first and third in an attempt to take a run from Brown while we were down. Some signals were crossed on the play, resulting in a run down between first and second that the baserunner narrowly escaped to remain safe at first. I have to give it to coach Tanner, though, he made a gutsy move, Mav, and called the exact same play before the next pitch was even thrown. This time the play worked as planned when an imperfect throw home resulted in a perfect run for the Gamecocks (tieing up the game if memory serves me). Hat tip to you, Coach Tanner. We'll, no doubt, keep that play in our back pocket for when we may need it later in the season.

I'd like to be more forthcoming in my analysis, but to be honest, homework and fantasy baseball preclude me from giving this re-cap more of my time. On the slate for this week are games at Furman and vs. Davidson before the weekend series against Tennessee. I'll concede that this post might be a little negative for a week that saw us go 5-0, so I'll leave you with this. If you want a hero for the season thus far, look no further than one Kyle Enders. That kid has been great. Let's hope he keeps it up.

The State has more in-depth re-caps for you below:

Saturday games

Sunday game

I'm going to take the weekend off from writing anything substantial. I have a few things to say about the basketball team and how people are taking the loss (sneak preview: the future is brighter than some are saying), but I'm going to give it a rest for for a couple of days. We have nothing but time now, and frankly I'm a little spent.

We can, though, chat about the goings-on here in this open thread. We can talk about our series against the Brown Bears (there's a double-header today after yesterday's postponement) and that basketball tournament that we crapped our way out of.

After a 15-0 trouncing of the Presbyterian College Blue Hose (1-7) on Wednesday, the South Carolina Gamecocks (5-2) will take on their (our {everyones's}) hated rival this weekend beginning Friday at 6:30. The Gamecocks should be riding high on confidence after Wednesday's match in which five USC pitchers combined to allow just two hits and Carolina batters pounded out an impressive 18 hits of their own. Starter Nolan Belcher (1-0) had a stong five inning outing in which he allowed one hit and struck out seven.

Carolina got off to a hot start, scoring 8 runs in the second inning - all with two outs. Junior oufielder Whit Merrifield extended his hit streak to 21 games dating back to last year, and added his second career grand slam in the sixth inning for good measure. Jackie Bradley, Jr. got his first start of the season in center field, going 2-4. All-in-all, just what the doctor ordered for Carolina before heading into an important series this weekend.

Clemson preview after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

South Carolina (3-0) travels to Greenville, North Carolina Friday to take on the ECU Pirates (2-2). The Purple Pirates are coming off an opening weekend that saw them drop two games to the number one team in the country, The University of Virginia. More recently, ECU laid the wood to Old Dominion (3-1) on Tuesday, pounding out 16 hits en route to an 11-2 victory.

More after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

Opening day weekend saw the Gamecocks go 3-0 against a Duquesne team that was making its last trip to Carolina Stadium. Ever. The Gamecocks performed admirably, outscoring their opponent 28-9. However, the weekend still left Carolina fans with a few questions, as every opening weekend always does. For instance, will USC’s bullpen be improved this year? After all, 6 of Duquesne’s 9 runs were scored after the sixth inning – not exactly a ringing endorsement of the Gamecocks’ relief pitchers. The USC starters fared far better, though, never allowing an inning to get away from them. The main question surrounding the starters is whether freshman RHP Tyler Webb will be able to lock down the Sunday spot. If not, we’re looking at a long season of "Sunday-starter-by committee." Questions also surround flame thrower Sam Dyson and whether he will be able to make the same kind of contribution he did last year after coming off shoulder surgery.

via grfx.cstv.com

Of course the main question on everybody’s mind is if Scott Wingo will be able to achieve his goal of becoming the most beamed second baseman of all time. Wingo got off to a good start this weekend notching two hit-by-pitches already (or should I say allowing two hit-by-pitches to notch him).

Tanner’s offense didn’t disappoint, either. As it seems is the case every year, Christian Walker exploded in his first series with the Gamecocks to sure up a spot that had previously been a question mark. Even injured Jackie Bradley, Jr. got in as a defensive replacement late in some games, good news for those of us who feared he may be out the better part of two months.

Carolina starts this week ranked #10 by Baseball America and #12 by Rivals.com   

With the first series in the books, USC head to Greenville this weekend to take on a ranked ECU team. Tanner never has shied away from scheduling strong opponents, and this weekend may very well set the tone for the rest of the season.

Continue reading this post »

The Yardcocks kicked off the 2010 season on Friday in front of a crowd of 6,380 at Carolina Stadium. Carolina rode a two homerun performance from 1b Jefferey Jones to a 10-3 win over Duquesne (pronounced due-cane). Jones, you'll remember, was slated to be the starting first baseman last year until his and Nick Ebert's batting averages started heading in opposite directions. Jones' hard work in the off season seems to have paid off as he collected 5 R(s)BI on the night. More after the jump.

Firstbaseman. Redhead. Hero.

Continue reading this post »