It was the news everyone feared, now official.

South Carolina baseball's Eli Jerzembeck will miss the entire 2025 season with a stress fracture in his right elbow. Paul Mainieri made the news official at his Thursday press conference after saying last Thursday he was visiting a doctor.

"I feel so bad for the kid," Mainieri said. "He missed all of last year with Tommy John surgery, and now he misses this year with a stress fracture."

Jerzembeck started his career as a promising true freshman for the Gamecocks in 2023, appearing in 16 games and pitching to a 2.84 ERA in 31 2/3 innings. But his season ended abruptly when he tore his UCL on May 7 at Kentucky, an injury which required Tommy John surgery to repair. Jerzembeck did not pitch at all in the 2024 season and finally ramed back up to some fall action, looking poised to take the spot as a the team's Friday starter when he made a full recovery.

But he struggled in all three of his pre-season scrimmage outings, and it became apparent something was wrong.

"Obviously it's big blow to our team," Mainieri said. "All summer since I was here, all fall, all winter, I anticipated he was going to be our Friday night starter. But you could see he just wasn't right when he pitched in the scrimmages. He usually has really good command, and his control was really off. Even though he was touching 95 MPH, you could tell his fastball didn't have the same explosiveness it did in the fall."

South Carolina opens a three-game home series against Milwaukee on Friday at 4 p.m. ET.

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