Should Zack Hess remain LSU baseball’s Friday night starter?

Friday night starting pitchers in college baseball have many common traits… plus fastballs and exploding breaking pitches.  Zack Hess has those tools in the arsenal.  Friday night starters are also consistently dominating. Hess has not been dominant on Friday night’s through a season and three starts.  The hard throwing right hander emerged as the team’s closer in 2017 as LSU baseball made a run to the CWS finals.  Last season Hess was inserted as the Tigers’ Friday night starter with mixed results, finishing 7 and 6 with an ERA of 5.05.

If you’re looking for legit Friday night numbers, look no further at former LSU ace Alex Lange.  Lange finished his final season in Baton Rouge as the Friday night starter with an ERA of 2.97 and a 10 and 5 record. That same season Zack Hess was outstanding working out of the bullpen…finishing with a 7-1 record and ERA of 3.12.  Hess is more effective out of the bullpen.  He’s is a high energy pitcher.  There’s a lot to his delivery that allows him to throw really hard, but also isn’t conducive to pitching deep into ball games.

Through three starts so far this season we’re seeing a similar pattern as last year.  Zack Hess flashes dominance at times, and is frustratingly inconsistent at times.  So far this season Hess is 1 and 1 with an ERA of 5.68 with 8 walks.  I’m not saying Hess doesn’t have value to the Tigers pitching staff; he certainly does.  I’m just not sure if it’s on Friday nights.  Skipper Paul Mainieri might have boxed himself into a corner back on media day in January.  Mainieri said, “Hess will be the Friday night starter all season long.” Now he’s faced with the prospect that he might have to eat those words and perhaps make a change.

So if Hess is removed as the Friday night guy, who are the possible pitchers who could slide in that spot? The only logical player that I see is the team’s current closer and former starter Todd Peterson.  Fridays are obviously the most important game of the series.  Teams want to win Friday to take control of the series.  Peterson has the attitude and stuff to start on Friday night.  Promising freshman pitchers Jaden Hill, Landon Marceaux and Cole Henry aren’t ready and haven’t pitched in the SEC.  The trio of freshman don’t have enough big game experience to be dubbed the Friday night guy.

My guess is that Hess will remain the Friday night starter for the remainder of the season, because the options aren’t very plentiful.  The talent is there on the pitching staff, but the experience isn’t.  If my prediction is accurate, then Hess has to improve and improve quickly if, the Tigers are going to have the kind of season predicted.

Lagniappe:  Pardon me for a minute, but I wanted to get this off my chest.  Following Texas sweeping LSU this weekend, my twitter timeline exploded with “fire Paul Mainieri” tweets.  I immediately laughed and fired back at one of my followers.

What? So you are going to point the finger of blame at PM? Not 22 walks issued by LSU pitching? A defense that has committed 9 errors this season and the bottom part of the order that went hitless in the first two games of series. https://t.co/PJn0RCNzKW

It’s March people.  Relax! In 2017 LSU dropped a non-conference series in March, and went on to the College World Series finals.  I think this Texas series sweep will serve as a galvanizing moment for an already talented LSU squad.  Spare me of the notion that Paul Mainieri needs to go.  Take the time to look at numbers.  Mainieri is 551-229-3 in 12 seasons at LSU.  That’s a winning percentage of .706 for you math experts. Mainieri has coached five College World Series teams, and won the 2009 College World Series.  Paul Mainieri’s teams won the SEC five times.  What’s more? Mainieri has six SEC tournament titles to his name.  Oh, back to his winning percentage…it’s the second-highest in SEC history behind former LSU legendary coach Skip Bertman.  Please, stop with the silly argument that Paul Mainieri is the problem. Yes, he’s the coach of a team that had a bad weekend, but calls for his job are wreck less, senseless and plain stupid.