By Sinderella
Rivalry week is officially here, and the best rivalry in college baseball is the The Palmetto Series between South Carolina (9-0) and #13 Clemson (7-1). We have two programs that many consider blue-bloods that have faced off, not only in the regular season every year, but have done battle in Omaha multiple times as well. This rivalry does not need anything to spark the passion between the two when they are on the same field, but the past few years have had an extra spark with South Carolina having a few Clemson transfers (not to mention a former Clemson Head Coach on the Gamecock coaching staff) on their team and words have been exchanged on social media. This year, South Carolina has two former Clemson Tigers, Nathan Hall and Nolan Nawrocki, on the team, and they are playing extremely well to begin the season. Nawrocki is the interesting one between the two because after the game one walkoff win last year, he had a viral clip that showed him turning to the crowd flashing the "Tigers" on his jersey in celebration. I will be interested to see how that dynamic plays out over the weekend.
South Carolina comes into this weekend without having to play any teams that can compete with them on a talent or depth level. Clemson comes into this weekend with playing a number of what was believed to be very good teams in the Shiner's Children College Showdown where Clemson had mixed results. Since then, they had had some battles, just as South Carolina has, with teams many believe they should crush. A lot of that could be due to the bad playing weather in the state of South Carolina. Both teams finally got to play in good playing weather in their last midweek game, and they both won by a combined score of 34-11. This weekend is looking like that good playing weather will continue, so I am expecting some balls to fly.
Looking over some numbers between South Carolina and Clemson, both school compare favorably to the rest of the country. Coming into this game, South Carolina and Clemson are extremely close and highly ranked in most of the major numbers that people look at. The Gamecocks seem to have the edge in team ERA, and, while one might say it is because of level of competition, even if you take the college showdown Clemson was in, the Gamecocks still have a much better team ERA. The Tigers do have a slight edge in other areas that include hitting and defense, but they are practically the same. These numbers are a fun way to analyze the game, but ultimately when both teams take the field there are no numbers that mean anything, especially in this rivalry.
Last year, they only played two games due to Sunday having bad weather and Clemson won both games 5-4 with the first one being a walk-off homerun in 12 innings. You can throw those results out the door with the matchup this year. Both teams look extremely different with many transfers on both side playing big roles, and South Carolina is in year one of the Paul Mainieri era. This matchup is going to be a fun one with both teams starting to heat up, and this early test for South Carolina will be a tough one to pass.
Prediction:
Game 1: South Carolina wins
Game 2: Clemson wins
Game 3: Clemson wins
Clemson wins the series 2-1
(All pictures courtesy of @GamecockBll)
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