For the first time this season, Eli Jones will not start South Carolina baseball’s season opener.
Jones is coming off one of his best starts of the season, six innings of one-run ball in Gainesville as South Carolina won the lid-lifter over Florida. But as consistent as Jones has been with a 3.89 ERA in eight starts, that is exactly why he will start Saturday this week.
The ace will take the ball on Saturday of South Carolina’s series against No. 2 Arkansas, with Roman Kimball taking the ball in Friday’s series-opener and Jones to follow and no Sunday starter determined yet.
“We’ve been talking about this for a few weeks now,” Mark Kingston said. “Eli has been the pitcher that gives us the most length on the weekends of all the starters. Generally you would like to have that in the middle game so your bullpen can be really good on Friday, have a day off and go on Sunday.”
This move means Jones will not face one of the nation’s best pitchers on Friday, Arkansas ace Hagen Smith. So far this year Smith has pitched to a microscopic 1.76 ERA, allowing just 20 total hits in 41 innings this season and striking out a staggering 83 batters in the process against only 14 walks. Six of his nine starts have featured double-digit strikeout performances, and he has only allowed so much as two runs in the same inning three times all year.
In a league filled to the brim with elite arms, he might be the very best South Carolina faces all season. But even with the daunting task for his lineup, Kingston said the pitching decision was independent of how the Razorbacks are expected to set up their rotation.
“We have a lot of respect for Hagen Smith,” Kingston said. “But that’s not why this decision was made. We made it because we think it’s the best use of our resources that hopefully will help us win the most amount of games.”
Pushing Jones back a day still left a decision for Kingston and pitching coach Matt Williams about who to start on Friday. The rotation behind Jones has been a revolving door in SEC play with Dylan Eskew, Roman Kimball, Tyler Pitzer, Ty Good and Matthew Becker have all had cracks at cementing a spot, but inconsistent performances have plagued all five.
Kimball has been the longest out of the rotation, losing his spot after an erratic outing at Ole Miss a month ago where he only recorded five outs and walked as many batters. He did not pitch at all the following two weekends against Vanderbilt and Alabama — he did not even travel with the team to Tuscaloosa — but has returned and picked up two better outings against Texas A&M and Florida with 6 ⅓ combined innings.
Now not only is he back in the weekend rotation, he has the premier spot for a week in a key series.
“Roman gets the nod because he has a .169 opponent’s batting average which is the best on our team,” Kingston said. “He is the hardest guy to hit on our team, and his last four outings have been very good. We’re going with him because we think he gives us a chance to win.”
Arkansas has not officially released its rotation yet, but is expected to stick with its usual trio of Smith on Friday, Mason Molina on Saturday and Brady Tygart for the series finale.
FIrst pitch Friday at Founders Park is set for 7 p.m. ET on ESPN+.
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