By Sinderella
Coming off a huge upset series win over a top 5 Kentucky team, South Carolina is going on the road to face Missouri in the Battle of Columbia's. The Gamecocks went into the Kentucky series with a new identity on offense. They used much more of a small ball approach with sac bunts, hit and runs, look for singles, move the guys over, steal bases, etc. At least, versus Kentucky it worked as they would end up knocking in 28 runs. This continued in the midweek as they put up another 15 runs by working the small ball with some homeruns sprinkled in.
Missouri is coming off a series versus Tennessee where they played the Volunteers a lot closer than most predicted with only one out of the three games being blowouts. Missouri is one of the bottom teams in the SEC, but you can't overlook them if you are South Carolina. Missouri holds a winning record at home and no matter the opponent it is hard to win on the road in the SEC.
The Missouri offense is led by Jackson Lovich and Trevor Austin they combined for 17 home runs and 56 RBIs. Missouri's offense is dead last in the SEC in batting average, home runs, and pretty much every offensive category. The pitching staff is a little better ranking 11th out of 14 SEC teams based on ERA. They are led by Logan Lunceford (1-4, 7.04) and Carter Rustad (4-6, 5.65). Safe to say that there is a lot to be desired here, but again, they did just play Tennessee very close in two games and are looking to play spoiler to South Carolina's hopes to host a regional.
With South Carolina's hot bats, new offensive identity, and plus pitching, the Gamecocks are too talented and too good to lose the series. They have to stack up wins in impressive fashion to continue to climb and hold onto their current standing as a host lock if the season ended today. With South Carolina playing their best ball, I believe the Gamecocks get another SEC sweep.
(All pictures courtesy of @MizzouBaseball on X)
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