By: Sinderella
Two of the hottest teams in the country collide in Columbia, South Carolina as the Gamecocks host the Georgia Bulldogs. Georgia is coming off a huge series sweep over Vanderbilt while South Carolina is coming off a 2-1 road series win over Missouri. This series is a big one for both teams for not only SEC tournament positioning and bragging rights, but is even more important for regional hosting aspirations. Getting a series win for either team is huge in potentially locking down a regional hosting spot. A series loss does not kick the other one out of regional hosting, but they will have some work to do.
Georgia brings one of the top offenses in the country with them as they are #3 in the nationally in home runs and are led by Charlie Condon who has tied the single-season home run record with 33 home runs. But Georgia is not a one man army. Corey Collins is Condon's running mate and is hitting .352 with 24 home runs. Collins also leads the country in on-base percentage at a staggering .591.
They are deep when it comes to the lineup. They have 5 players with double digit home runs and 7 players that are hitting .300+. The one good thing is they do not steal many bases as they are just 21-23 on the year. The pitching staff can not have the struggles early in the games like they did last year because Georgia's offense is too good and will capitalize on all mistakes by the Gamecock pitching staff.
The Georgia pitching staff, on the other hand, is not very good. This is a staff that South Carolina's hot offense should be able to take advantage of and put some high run numbers on over the series. The lowest ERA for any Georgia pitcher with more than 10 innings pitched is 3.72. They are led by Leighton Finley (4-1, 4.53) as their best starting pitcher. South Carolina is pretty good at limiting home runs and that should help in this series.
South Carolina's starting pitching struggled last series and if they can find there way back to quality starts this could be a favorable series for South Carolina. This should be a very fun series to watch. I expect a lot of runs, a lot of home runs, and a lot of ERA's to shoot up. With this series being played at home and South Carolina's advantage in pitching I am picking the Gamecocks to win the series 2-1.
(All pictures courtesy of @BaseballUGA on X)