LSU needed a good outing from sophomore right-hander William Schmidt, but one of the best offensive teams in college baseball jumped on his fastball in a 7-2 win over the Tigers.
LSU’s offense could not keep up as the Tigers were held to five hits with too many unproductive at-bats.
The 10th-ranked Texas A&M Aggies have looked like the best team in the country the last two days, while LSU looks nowhere close to its preseason number one ranking.
The Tigers fall to 6-11 in SEC play and have lost five straight conference games.
William Schmidt’s outing: There is a lot wrong with this LSU team. The defense is not good, the offense struggles to put pressure on opposing teams, the transfer additions haven’t come through, but don’t forget about the starting pitching.
Schmidt (4-4) and Friday night starter Casan Evans have not been good enough this season. In his start on Saturday, Schmidt allowed three runs in the second inning, two more in the third inning, and the game was basically over at that point.
Aggie hitters were teeing off on Schmidt as his fastball sailed over the middle of the plate, and Texas A&M took healthy cuts against the Baton Rouge native.
Schmidt allowed two home runs. His final line was 5.1 innings, seven hits, seven runs, all of them earned, four walks, four strikeouts, and two wild pitches.
Jay Johnson admits roster mismanagement: Coach Jay Johnson is always very supportive of his players and has the ultimate belief in them. His belief in his players went a long way towards the Tigers winning two national championships in three years. Gave them confidence that they can come through in tough situations.
But after 40 games, Johnson has publicly concluded that some of the players he recruited are just not good enough.
“I made some mistakes constructing this team,” Johnson said.
Johnson went on to say he put too much emphasis on trying to replace the 35 home runs hit by Jared Jones and Ethan Frey last season.
He said in the future, they will look to develop power bats from their high school recruits, like Jake Brown, who has a team-leading 16 home runs, and add transfer portal players who are complete players, both at the plate and in the field.
The four big-time transfer portal additions last offseason, Zach Yorke, Trent Caraway, Brayden Simpson, and Seth Dardar, are all hitting .266 and lower and did not start in Saturday’s loss to the Aggies, because of injuries or ineffectiveness.
Johnson is right; his coaching staff made some bad evaluations. But again, several returning pitchers have not taken the appropriate step this season. Evans, Schmidt, Cooper Williams, and Mavrick Rizy come to mind. Cade Arrambide should be a better catcher defensively.
And even some of the veterans have not been good enough for long stretches. For instance, Jake Brown went 0-for-4 with 3 strikeouts on Saturday as his average continues to drop to .311.
It’s been a collective letdown by the whole program.
What’s Next: LSU will try to salvage the series on Sunday at 1 PM.
LSU will likely start Zac Cowan, who is 1-1 with a 3.60 ERA.
The Aggies are expected to start junior right-hander Weston Moss, who is 3-2 with a 6.69 ERA.
LSU’s had success scoring runs on Sundays in the SEC, they need that to happen again.
