Good afternoon, hope everyone is doing well. Spent the afternoon out at Founders Park for day one of fall baseball today. Gamecocks are scrimmaging 2-3 innings each of the first four days this week and I'll try to make it out to all four.
Not a lot to unpack because they're basically just having every pitcher throw one inning and they're all on pitch counts, but I did have a few notes from today for the subscribers. Will update as the week goes on, but as for today:
- Talmadge LeCroy played catcher for two innings. Looked fine from what I could see, nothing to really report which is what you want from someone breaking in a new position. Paul Mainieri mentioned this morning that he has been working at catcher over the summer and he "has a chance to be our number one catcher" going forward.
- Will Tippett had one at-bat and crushed an 0-2 pitch into the left field bullpen off Tyler Dean. Swing looks like where it ended last year when he hit two homers in the regional.
- Clemson tranfer Nolan Nawrocki made a nice diving stop at third base on a sharp ground ball from Ethan Petry, probably robbing him of a double.
- Liked what I saw from freshman pitcher Ryder Garino. Wasn't throwing hard, topping at about 90 MPH, but a lot of strikes. Struck out transfers Max Kaufer and Jase Woita in his inning.
- Productive day from the bats you'd expect to be near the top of the lineup. Kennedy Jones had a sharp opposite field single, plus Blake Jackson and Dalton Mashore both drew walks.