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LSU baseball: Surging, semifinal-bound Tigers are one of country’s hottest teams
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LSU won its sixth consecutive game on Thursday, beating South Carolina 11-10 in a hit fest to clinch a spot in the SEC Tournament semifinals.
The Tigers are up to 24th in RPI, with 3 wins over top-20 teams in 3 tries thus far in Hoover. They’ve played their way into virtual lock status for the NCAA Tournament, sitting just 1 victory shy of a third consecutive 40-win season.
“We’re playing better than anybody right now,” coach Jay Johnson said after his Tigers run-ruled Kentucky on Wednesday.
They were tested on Thursday against the Gamecocks.
Trailing 10-9 entering the top of the ninth, LSU opened the inning with back-to-back singles from Steven Milam and Jake Brown. A sac-fly tied the game before Michael Braswell III lined a 2-out RBI single to bring the game-winning run across the plate. Fidel Ulloa (2-1) was also clutch in the effort, working his way out of a jam in the eighth by striking out consecutive batters to end the frame and then pitching around a 1-out single in the ninth.
“Great baseball game tonight, so proud of our team,” Johnson said after. “Really for the last month, every win we’ve had has been the most important win. Tonight was the best win of the season.”
Johnson felt the pitching was better than the 10 runs South Carolina plated would indicate. But the Gamecocks were also spearheaded by another brilliant effort from Cole Messina, who hit a grand slam to add to his record-setting week at the conference tourney. Through 3 games, Messina is hitting 8-for-12 with 14 RBI and 4 home runs.
“He single-handedly almost beat us tonight,” Johnson said.
But in each moment where it looked like the game was teetering on the edge for LSU, the Tigers responded in the exact right way. They gave up 5 runs in the bottom of the third and then tied the game in the top of the fourth with just 4 at-bats. They gave up 4 in the sixth but held the Gamecocks to just 2 hits over the final 3 innings.
Ulloa was clutch in the bottom of the eighth, walking the first 2 batters he faced, bringing Messina to the plate with a chance to add to his RBI total, and then striking out consecutive hitters to end the frame and keep LSU within 1 run going into the ninth.
It felt huge in the moment. It proved influential. A 2-run deficit, Johnson said, would have felt much different than a 1-run margin in the ninth. Especially with freshmen stepping to the plate for LSU’s first 2 at-bats of the final inning.
Collectively, the group answered the call.
“A lot of things didn’t go well. I think it’s a great training ground for where we’re headed in the NCAA Tournament. We talked about when we were down 5-1 that in the postseason if you get behind, if you press, if you panic, the season gets away from you in a hurry and these guys have not done that the entire season,” Johnson said. “That was the best example of it tonight.”
As of Friday morning, D1Baseball’s latest tournament projections had LSU slated to be the 2-seed in the Stillwater Regional. Contrast that with where this LSU team sat a month ago, coming off a series sweep at the hands of Tennessee. They were 3-12 in conference play. After that series wrapped, Johnson acknowledged the challenges of winning on the road against a good team but stated, “I’m going to do everything I can to put our team in a position to win games.”
LSU is 17-5 since.
They were on the fringe of the tournament picture. Now they look deserving of a 2-seed. Even at the outset of the conference tournament, there was still some convincing to be done. LSU’s statement through 3 games has been boisterous.
Because of their win on Thursday, the Tigers have an off day before the semifinals begin on Saturday. It’s a key win, allowing the staff to set up their pitching for Saturday and allowing the entire team to exhale for a moment.
“We’ve kind of been taking this in increments. (Wednesday’s) game was to get out of the 9:30 slot. We were playing for the afternoon championship, that’s what we were going for. Tonight was the off day championship,” Johnson said. “We went to Fleming’s (Steakhouse) on Sunday night when we arrived and I said if we have the off day on Friday, we’ll go to Fleming’s again. It’s kind of a postseason tradition here for the last couple years. We got the off day and we got the steak, so a lot of very happy guys going back to that hotel tonight.”
LSU is surging. And they’ve inspired some confidence in the markets. At DraftKings, the Tigers are +1400 to win the College World Series. They have the seventh-shortest odds and are 1 of 5 SEC teams at the top of the board.
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Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
