After losing back-to-back series in the SEC the Gamecocks are shuffling their pitching rotation heading into this weekend's series against a top-five Mississippi State team.

The Gamecocks aren't changing any of their three starters but are moving Thomas Farr from the Friday night role to Sunday and moving the other two pitchers—Brannon Jordan and Will Sanders—up a day.

“We just need to spark it. We needed to do something to change up a little bit of the mojo," Mark Kingston said. "All three pitchers deserve to be weekend starters right now, but obviously we haven’t had the kind of success overall we wanted to. Sometimes you have to try some things and see what it looks like.”

The Gamecocks as a whole have struggled most series openers of late, winning one of their seven game ones this season.

Farr, who's started on Friday nights all year, is 0-5 since SEC play began with a 4.97 ERA and a .230 batting average against. Jordan's been the best starter statistically in league play with a 3.38 ERA in seven starts with a .160 batting average against.

Sanders (3-2, 3.94 ERA) will start on Saturday now after being the Sunday starter the last six weekends.

Because of a doubleheader against Ole Miss, Farr last pitched on Friday but Jordan and Sanders each pitched Saturday.

The Gamecocks' offense hasn't necessarily helped Farr on Fridays, slashing .168/.261/.252 in series openers while averaging 2.7 runs per game in league play.

Compare that to the 14 other games in SEC play where South Carolina is hitting .249/.333/.459 and averaging over six runs per game.

Kingston and his staff made some changes to the lineup in Wednesday's 7-6 win over North Florida, shifting Braylen Wimmer to the leadoff spot and Brady Allen to the three-hole.

That could potentially continue this weekend.

"For most of the year he’s been our leadoff guy," Kingston said. "Because our offense hasn’t been scoring as many runs as we want, we decided to give it a different look in the three-hole. We’ll get together as a staff and decide if that’s the direction we want to go.”

First pitch Friday night against the Bulldogs is scheduled for 7 p.m.

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