If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

What a great college baseball series this weekend between 2 of the top 3 teams in the nation. And once again the South Carolina Gamecocks have taken a series from from the number one ranked team in the nation. This time it was the Vanderbilt Commodores. USC won the series 2-1, winning the Friday night and Sunday afternoon match ups. The bats finally started to heat up a little bit and Jackie Bradley may be breaking out of his slump after getting two hits on Sunday after being moved to the lead off position.

I was at the games Friday and Saturday night but had to catch the last 5 innings of the Sunday game on TV. Relief pitcher Matt Price was awesome in relief on Friday and Sunday. He struck out all 4 batters he faced Friday night to clinch the 3-1 victory. Michael Roth got the win as he continued his excellent pitching to put him at (8-1) on the season. Roth had great control of his pitches the entire night. “I stuck to the weekly game plan,” Roth said. “I threw some changeups and I felt like I had pretty good stuff tonight. I was just really locating well. I didn’t miss too many spots.” Roth only gave up 3 hits in 7 2/3 innings.

The losing pitcher for Vanderbilt was Sonny Gray (7-2) on the year now. Gray is expected to be a top 10 pick in the Major League draft in June.

Top-ranked Vandy was able to even the series Saturday with a 6-4 victory. The Gamecocks scored 3 runs in the 2nd inning but were unable to muster much offense after that. Vanderbilt used 5 relievers out of the bullpen to keep the Gamecocks at bay. Freshman Tony Kemp LF  5-6 160lbs was 5 for 5 on the night and scored 2 runs. Mike Yastrzemski homered to right to lead off the second inning. It was his first homer of the year and I am sure it made his grandpa awful proud. He is listed at 168lbs. but showed good arm strength in right field and a little power. Bad news in the sixth as Adam Matthews re-injured his hamstring and may be done for the year although I bet he will be back in a month for DH and pinch hit duties.

The crowd at the Friday game was like the crowd at World Series last year. Very into the the game and loud. Saturday night the crowd was more laid back. The Sunday crowd appeared to be more like the Friday night crowd.

In the Sunday game Ray Tanner showed what a great coach he is by pulling out all the stops to get the 5-3 victory and win the series 2-1. Forrest Koumas started for the Gamecocks and 5 1/3 innings before being replaced by Tyler Webb. Webb got the final 2 outs in the sixth before Matt Price came in and worked his magic the final 3 innings to get the victory. Price struck out 7 hitters in 3 innings. Price is (4-2) on the year. Vanderbilt againg used a bunch of relievers but were unable to protect the 3-1 lead they took in the sixth after they had back to back homers.

This puts USC at 28-7 overall and 12-3 in the SEC. Vandy is now 32-5 and 11-4 in the conference. USC sits atop the SEC East with a one game lead over the Commodores. I don’t think USC will jump over Virginia in the polls even though they have won 2 series this year against number one ranked teams. Virginia will probably have to falter somewhere along the way for the Gamecocks to move ahead of them. But who knows, anything can happen.

South Carolina is through playing teams from the east and will now play teams from the west the last month of the season. Vanderbilt stills has to play the Florida Gators.