South Carolina baseball top pitcher Jake McCoy to miss 2026 season with injury

COLUMBIA — South Carolina baseball junior left-handed pitcher Jake McCoy will miss the 2026 season due to a tear in his UCL, a ligament on the inner side of his elbow.

The program announced the news on Jan. 28. The season opener is Feb. 13 vs Northern Kentucky at Founders Park. The news release didn’t specify when the injury occurred.

McCoy would have played his third season with the Gamecocks, and came into this year with 26 appearances, including 15 starts. Of those 15, 14 were his sophomore season last year. He was expected to be the Friday night starter for South Carolina this season.

“I’m disappointed to share that I’ll be out for the 2026 season after suffering a UCL tear that will require Tommy John surgery,” McCoy said in the news release. “Even though I can’t pitch, I’m still going to be with the guys every day — supporting them, staying locked in, and doing whatever I can to help the team.”

McCoy is 5-5 with a 7.11 ERA in two seasons at South Carolina.

McCoy has 97 strikeouts in 76 innings and had 12 against Clemson in the rivalry series last March. That marked a career-high. He’s gone seven games striking out seven or more batters.

The Gamecocks are now in their second season under coach Paul Mainieri, who came out of retirement in June 2024 to coach at South Carolina beginning last season.

In his first year, they went 28-29 and 6-24 in SEC play, the worst conference record in program history.

“My heart breaks for Jake because I knew that this was going to be a very important year for him,” Mainieri said in the same news release. “He’s worked so hard at becoming the best pitcher he can be and worked so hard on developing a changeup this offseason that we all thought was going to make him a more complete pitcher. He obviously has a great arm and I felt that he was going to blossom this year, so it’s a shame that he’s going to have to go through this.”

McCoy is from Fort Mill, South Carolina, and played in the Cape Cod Baseball League this past summer, pitching three innings for the Harwich Mariners.

Lulu Kesin covers South Carolina athletics for The Greenville News and the USA TODAY Network. Email her at LKesin@usatodayco.com. Follow her on X@Lulukesin and Bluesky‪@bylulukesin.bsky.social‬