LSU baseball was swept last weekend at Tennessee dropping the Tigers to 1-5 in SEC play and former LSU and MLB pitcher Ben McDonald had a pretty blunt assessment of the Tigers’ start.
“It’s not good,” he said. “There’s a little panic going on down here on the bayou I can tell you that. It’s rough. It’s not the start that they hoped for. It’s not the start that they wanted and look I don’t see it getting any better.”
McDonald joined WWL Radio’s Sports Talk Monday night and told host Kristian Garic that LSU could be in store for more losses with 19-3 Vanderbilt coming to Baton Rouge this week.
The Commodores are 5-1 in conference play and their top two pitchers Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker have been outstanding posting a combined 12 wins and a .25 and .73 ERA, respectively.
“To be honest with you I think LSU will be lucky to score two runs in both of those games combined,” McDonald told Garlic.
McDonald did say LSU has shown flashes this season but pointed to inconsistency in both pitching and on offense. He also mentioned his concern with the direction of the program and cited 2018 and 2019 as “off years” and even counted 2020, a season cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Let’s be honest about last year,” he said. “Last year, LSU was 12-5. They were dead last in the SEC, before conference play started, in team batting average. They were hitting .250. There were no signs at all that last year was going to be a good year for LSU.
“You could make the case that in some ways COVID might have saved LSU from having a really bad year.”
McDonald also compared LSU’s post-season performance to some of the other top programs in the SEC.
“Florida has been to seven of the last 10 College World Series. Vanderbilt’s been to three of the last six College World Series and won two of them, Florida’s won one by the way. Arkansas’ been to four of the last seven College World Series, Mississippi State’s been to three of the last five,” he said. “So now all of a sudden I’m going to ask you what direction you think the program’s going compared to other programs in the SEC right now and it’s pretty clear that LSU is not in that upward trend.”
LSU has only been to two of the last six College World Series tournaments with its last appearance coming in 2017, while the other schools McDonald mentioned have been to three with Florida appearing in four.
Listen to more of McDonald’s take on the Tigers in the clip below:
