It was highly unlikely that LSU baseball would go the entire season without losing an SEC series. Last year’s national champion Tigers lost two series and split a weather shortened two game set.
Here we are after one weekend of conference play, LSU lost a series on the road, in fact every Southeastern Conference team on the road this past weekend lost its series.
There were two things LSU didn’t do well against the Bulldogs and that was play sound defense and pitch well on the mound. Both were reasons why the Bulldogs took two of three from the Tigers.
“I do not think we pitched well,” said LSU coach Jay Johnson. “There’s a lot of things that are correctable, we have already started doing that. Defensively, we did not play our best, I do think we have a very good defensive team, but we didn’t play our best on defense.”
LSU committed six errors over the weekend, two each game.
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Starting pitching has been the strength, but none of their starters were on top of their game in Starkville. Luke Holman had not allowed a run entering the SEC opener but could not get through five innings.
However, Johnson praised Holman for having the Tigers in the game when he left the mound.
Gage Jump could not get past the fourth inning. Johnson pointed out that Jump has already thrown more innings this year than his entire career at UCLA and is still learning how to pitch when he doesn’t have his best stuff.
Thatcher Hurd got off to a rough start against Mississippi State by giving up three runs in the first inning. Hurd settled down, but then gave up four runs in the fifth inning.
Johnson said it was unfortunate because the momentum was shifting towards LSU after they came back to tie the game at three in the fifth inning.
Pitching is not the only area where this team needs to show improvement. Johnson is still looking for steady play from his outfielders.
Josh Pearson had a nice weekend, but the rest of the guys struggled.
Johnson said he knows Mac Bingham can be more productive and he still has faith in freshman outfielder Jake Brown and he’s looking forward to getting Ethan Frey back on the field after he recovers from an injured shoulder.
But the key piece to the puzzle is Paxton Kling. He’s supposed to be the main center fielder. Kling has all the tools but has seen his batting average drop to .214.
Kling is a draft eligible sophomore, and it could be that he’s putting too much pressure on himself.
Johnson decided to sit Kling Saturday. A mental rest day. The Tigers won, so Johnson decided to give Kling another day to watch from the dugout against a pitcher that is tough on right-handed hitters.
Sunday didn’t go well, and Johnson knows it’s time to get Kling back in the lineup Tuesday night against Louisiana Tech.
This will be a big week for the Tigers. They take on an experienced Bulldogs team Tuesday night and then 6th ranked Florida comes to Alex Box Stadium. It was the Gators who LSU defeated in the national championship series last season.
“Right now, we need to look at improvement, in every phase of how we play,” said Johnson.
LSU hopes they can get back to the formula that resulted in them winning 16 of its first 18 games. Great starting pitching, solid defense, and clutch hits.
The talent is there, it’s just impossible to ask them to be at the top of their game every SEC weekend.