{"id":146324,"date":"2026-02-26T17:42:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T17:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/146324\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T17:42:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T17:42:30","slug":"where-does-paul-mainieri-and-the-gamecocks-go-from-here-after-upset-loss-to-queens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/146324\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Does Paul Mainieri and the Gamecocks Go From Here After Upset Loss to Queens?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"55\">Things are looking dim around Founders Park following the loss Gamecocks baseball suffered at the hands of Queens on Wednesday. In what should&#8217;ve been a smooth victory heading into the weekend series against Clemson, now turns into a multitude of questions surrounding the program. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"58\">First, one loss doesn&#8217;t end a season, especially just nine games into the year. However this is now two losses through nine games that should not be on the Gamecocks record. First let&#8217;s look at how it happened. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5b\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gamecocksonline.com\/news\/2026\/02\/25\/baseball-falls-to-queens-wednesday-night\/?_gl=1%2a1nzs1d0%2a_up%2aMQ..%2a_ga%2aMjA1MTI4NzEwNC4xNzcyMTIzOTgx%2a_ga_XW8BGD7VQP%2aczE3NzIxMjM5ODAkbzEkZzEkdDE3NzIxMjY0NTMkajUzJGwwJGgw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Queens jumped on South Carolina early <\/a>scoring six runs in the first three innings and led 7-1 at one point in the game. The bats began to come to life for the Gamecocks as the game went on, battling back to cut the Royals lead to 9-8, but ultimately came up short. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5e\"> The Royals came into Wednesday&#8217;s matchup carrying a 3-4 record and finished the 2025 season with a 9-44 record. They are currently ranked 255th<a href=\"https:\/\/www.warrennolan.com\/baseball\/2026\/elo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> in Team ELO<\/a> out of 308 teams. Army, the team&#8217;s other disappointing loss, is ranked 162nd in those same rankings. That loss was also Army&#8217;s first power four win since 2022. In both cases, the pitching staff gave up 9 runs and the bats went cold for a majority of the game. <\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s Next: <\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Gamecocks rallied for four in the ninth to get close. Out-played all game. <\/p>\n<p>By a team that went 9-44 last year. <\/p>\n<p>But is now 4-4 this year! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mQ5YiAvjEB\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/mQ5YiAvjEB<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 David Cloninger (@DCPandC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DCPandC\/status\/2026854441765224640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February 26, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5n\">Finding consistent answers on the roster. The pitching has to be better if the team wants to reach its goals in 2026. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5q\"><a href=\"https:\/\/gamecocksonline.com\/sports\/baseball\/schedule\/?_gl=1%2ahl0s5a%2a_up%2aMQ..%2a_ga%2aMjA1MTI4NzEwNC4xNzcyMTIzOTgx%2a_ga_XW8BGD7VQP%2aczE3NzIxMjM5ODAkbzEkZzEkdDE3NzIxMjY0NDYkajYwJGwwJGgw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">As far as the schedule goes<\/a>, Clemson comes to Founders Park to open a three game series on Friday night. The series will continue with a neutral site game on Saturday and finish off with a road game at the Tigers on Sunday. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5t\">At 6-3 on the year and facing off against <a href=\"https:\/\/clemsontigers.com\/sports\/baseball\/schedule\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">an undefeated Tigers squad<\/a>, this weekend&#8217;s series against a big rival could say a lot about the future of the program going forward. <\/p>\n<p>Looking for more:<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"62\">Join the community:<\/p>\n<p>Follow Alex Joyce on Twitter:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AlexJoyceSI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">@AlexJoyceSI<\/a>Follow Joey Walraven on Twitter:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/thejoeywalraven\" rel=\"nofollow\">@thejoeywalraven<\/a><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Things are looking dim around Founders Park following the loss Gamecocks baseball suffered at the hands of Queens&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-146324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}