The LSU Baseball Tigers will find a similar looking baseball team staring back at them in their first game of the SEC tournament Tuesday. The Georgia Bulldogs mirror LSU at 13 and 17 in SEC play. Georgia is the 8th seed; LSU the 9th seed, and the closer you look, LSU and Georgia are almost carbon copies of one another.
Tuesday will mark the first ever matchup between these two programs in the SEC tournament. The Bayou Bengals lead the all-time series, 68-24-3. Under skipper Paul Mainieiri the Tigers reached the semi-final round of the SEC tournament seven straight seasons. Hoover Metropolitan Stadium might as well be LSU’s second home stadium.
Mainieiri's Tigers won five of their last seven SEC series including three in a row of their last three conference series. The Purple and Gold are surging at the right time having won 9 of their last 13 ball games. The Georgia Bulldogs are the fifth place finisher in the SEC East. UGA is hitting .275 as a team, with 56 home runs on the season. Infielder Josh McAllister leads the Bulldogs in hitting, with an average of .352 with 9 home runs and 29 RBI.
Georgia's strength is their pitching staff. UGA has a team ERA (Earned Run Average) of 3.87. Opponents are hitting just .226 against the Bulldogs pitching staff. That’s getting it done at a pretty high level on the bump. Left hander Ryan Webb is the ace on the mound for Georgia. Webb holds opposing hitters to a .198 batting average. Yikes!
Both LSU and Georgia have not announced who they will start on the mound Tuesday, but conventional wisdom points to either freshman Blake Money or Will Helmers as the Tigers’ starter. If LSU can deliver on the mound and go pitch for pitch with Georgia, they will be in this game. The LSU offense has to deliver timely hitting at the plate. If the Bayou Bengals can scratch across 4 runs, I think that would be enough to advance in the tournament.
Join me on WWL Facebook for a live pre-game chat at 4pm, along with in-game chats in the 3rd, 6th, and 9th innings. Also, hang out with me after the game on Facebook for a post-game chat. Geaux Tigers!
