During Paul Mainieri’s 15 seasons as LSU’s head baseball coach, the Tigers won six SEC Tournament titles. Mainieri had the magic touch on how to go deep in the SEC Tournament.
In two seasons with Jay Johnson, the Tigers are 2-4 in SEC Tournament games and have yet to reach the semifinals.
LSU would like to spend most of the week in Hoover this week to lock up an NCAA Tournament berth. The Tigers are very much on the bubble for a Regional bid after a 13-17 record in the SEC.
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The Tigers are the 11 seed in this year’s SEC Tournament and will play sixth-seeded Georgia Tuesday morning at 9:30.
The Bulldogs head coach is Wes Johnson, who was the Tigers pitching coach last season. They are 39-14 overall, 17-13 in the SEC and they are led by Charlie Condon. The former walk-on leads all of college baseball with 35 home runs and could be the top overall pick in this year’s Major League Baseball draft.
As a team Georgia is third in the country in home runs with 140 and as a team they are hitting .307, which is the second best in the Southeastern Conference.
Veteran Corey Collins, Slate Alford and Kolby Branch are the other big power hitters in the Bulldogs’ lineup.
Tuesday’s game is single elimination, but the Tigers have a starting pitcher who could potentially minimize Georgia’s big bats. Jump is 5-1, with a 3.65 ERA. In his last five starts, Jump has only allowed eight earned runs.
A benefit to last Thursday’s weather delay was that Jump only threw 83 pitches so he should be good to go for Tuesday morning’s start.
If LSU can beat Georgia, they will face third-seeded Kentucky on Wednesday morning. The Tigers defeated the Wildcats in the Super Regionals last year, but Kentucky is better this year as they finished tied with Tennessee for the best record in the SEC.
Kentucky is another good hitting team with a .294 team batting average. They lead the SEC in stolen bases with 104.
But again, the Tigers have a pitcher who can minimize Kentucky offensively.
Luke Holman is second in the SEC in strikeouts with 109 and he’s 8-3 with a 2.73 ERA.
Jump and Holman have been a great one-two punch in LSU’s weekend rotation and the Tigers bullpen finally had a consistent weekend in a sweep over Ole Miss. The Tigers bullpen had an ERA of 2.03 against a weak hitting Rebels team.
If LSU’s pitching staff can duplicate its performance versus Ole Miss during the SEC Tournament, the Tigers could still be playing in the SEC Tournament this weekend.