Series Primer: South Carolina Takes On No. 1 LSU

South Carolina's Baseball team is set for their biggest series of the season with the No. 1 ranked LSU Tigers.

Mark Kingston's squad hasn't dropped a single three-game series to this point in the season, a stretch that's been highlighted with wins over their archrivals in the Clemson Tigers, the Missouri Tigers and the Mississippi State Bulldogs. This weekend, however, the Gamecocks are set to face off against one of only three other SEC teams that've yet to lose a conference series to this point in the No. 1 ranked LSU Tigers.

When taking a glance at LSU’s batting lineup, the stats indicate that the Tigers are a very aggressive lineup that looks to simply put the bat on the ball, and only two LSU starters have drawn more walks than have struck out this season, Tre’ Morgan and Dylan Crews. Speaking of Dylan Crews, he's right now probably the run-away favorite to be named the national player of the year right at season's end, as he's slashing .531/.659/.927 in 29 games with 9 homers and 35 RBI’s.

South Carolina's pitching staff will have to avoid displaying any obvious tendencies with this LSU batting lineup throughout the series, and make sure everyone remains locked in for all 9 innings.

As good as the Tigers' batting lineup is, their pitching staff isn't too far behind. Out of all the pitchers that have pitched 9 innings plus this season, the staff has a 3.16 ERA and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3.57:1. Paul Skenes, Ty Floyd and Thatcher Hurd look to be the Tigers’ three starters, with Skenes being the man to watch on Thursday night, as he's compiled a 7-0 win-loss record, 0.81 ERA and a 10.3:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

South Carolina's batters will need to string together quality plate appearances and force LSU's pitching staff to earn their outs in order to get to a Tigers' deep bullpen that has a notable dropoff after their top few relievers. Will Sanders will make his return to the rotation on Thursday night and look to get things back on track, while Carson Hornung and Noah Hall are both questionable to play this weekend.

How To Watch: South Carolina vs LSU

• Gamedays: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, April 6th-8th, 2023.
• Game time: 7:00 pm ET for Games 1 & 2, and 12:00 pm ET for Game 3.
• TV: SEC Network+ for Games 1 & 2 and SEC Network for Game 3. 
• Stadium: Founders Park (Columbia, SC)
• Live stream on fuboTV: Start with a 7-day free trial!

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