South Carolina baseball’s injury-depleted roster took another hit, this one coming on the mound.
Freshman relief pitcher Eli Jerzemebck left the mound with a trainer in the sixth inning of last Sunday’s series finale at Kentucky, and the diagnosis was grim.
Jerzembeck did not pitch at all in the Arkansas series, and Mark Kingston confirmed at hsi Wednesday press conference that he will miss the remainder of the season.
After pitching a scoreless fifth inning in South Carolina’s eventual 9-2 loss, Jerzembeck took the mound for another frame with the Gamecocks trailing 5-2 at the time. He missed high with a 1-2 pitch to Kentucky’s Jackson Gray leading off of the sixth, and immediately felt an issue. The freshman called for the training staff to come out to the mound, and did not throw another pitch in the outing.
The Charlotte native was one of the most highly-touted recruits to make it to campus in the 2022 recruiting class, with Perfect Game ranking him as the top right-handed pitcher out of the state of North Carolina for his class. He appeared in 16 games and made two starts, totaling up 31 ⅔ innings in his budding career.
He only allowed 10 earned runs in those outings, eight of which came in two outings at Charlotte on Mar. 21 and vs. Charleston Southern on Apr. 18. His 2.84 ERA has made him one of the most consistent options on the staff for Kingston and Justin Parker, and he has sported similarly impressive numbers in a limited SEC sample size with no earned runs allowed in 5 ⅔ conference innings. In 12 out of his last 14 outings of the season, Jerzembeck did not allow a run and recorded at least one strikeout in 11 of them.
Jerzembeck joined Roman Kimball and Ricky Williams on the unfortunate list of South Carolina pitchers who had their season cut short with injuries, and Noah Hall could be trending in the same direction, as the original Saturday starter still has not pitched since March and will not pitch against Tennessee this weekend.
The injury leaves South Carolina with 17 healthy pitchers remaining on the roster, although only nine of them have pitched more than seven innings on the season. Two of the seven pitchers who have started at least two games are now down as well including Hall.
South Carolina will return to SEC action with a three-game series vs.Tennessee starting Thursday at 7 p.m. on SEC Network Plus.
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