By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
“Improvise, adapt and overcome.”
LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson said that when asked about the Tigers’ game on Saturday being moved up from 6 p.m. to 2 p.m. because of bad weather in the forecast.
But this ain’t about the weather.
Johnson has been 1-for-3 on on those three verbs in order for the last week with four losses in five games and two in two days. He has improvised with the lineup, but his team has been unable to adapt and overcome.
The Tigers, who plummeted from No. 2 to No. 13 in the D1 Baseball and Baseball America polls on Monday, will have one more chance to adapt and overcome before Southeastern Conference play begins Friday at Vanderbilt.
The Tigers (12-5), who have also fallen from No. 74 before the weekend to No. 139 in the Ratings Percentage Index, host No. 130 RPI Creighton (5-7) at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in Alex Box Stadium. LSU is the 13th ranked SEC team in RPI and fifth in Louisiana behind No. 12 Louisiana-Lafayette (12-4), which beat LSU, No. 34 Louisiana Tech (10-7), No. 86 Nicholls State (9-8), which was 10-run-ruled by LSU, 12-1, and No. 133 McNeese State (7-8), which beat LSU.
“The take is our best friend right now. Far more good is happening when we don’t swing than when we do.”
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) March 9, 2026
-LSU coach Jay Johnson on his disappearing offense:https://t.co/r1Uz9uwzRy
Sacramento State, which over the weekend became the first mid-major or non-power-five-conference team to take two of three from LSU since Appalachian State in 2012, is No. 166 in RPI at 5-10.
But forget the RPI for a moment, because it is early for that. The trend through the last four losses is a lack of offense as the Tigers are hitting .192 (26-for-135) over that span with four runs or less scored in three of those games.
When asked if confidence was starting to become an issue with the offense, Johnson shot back, “You’d have to ask them. I don’t stand in the box.”
That is a rare edged retort from Johnson, but he is the offensive coordinator.
“I’m very confident that when we show up that we are prepared to win, and doing the things necessary to get them to win,” he continued. “We’re adjusting those on a daily basis as needed. That’s a warrior-competitor-in-the-fight question. Not a coach question.”
So, senior transfer second baseman Brayden Simpson, who got one of LSU’s six hits Sunday and drove in the only run, was asked what the crux of the inconsistencies plaguing the team is.
“It’s a really tough question, man,” he said. “I don’t know. I came here last time talking about our process. I think it’s still some of that – just getting back to our process day in, day out. It’s tough. I mean, there’s a standard here, and I feel like we haven’t quite been meeting that offensively and other parts of the game as well. And all we can do is come back tomorrow and clean that stuff up. That’s all we got.”
Simpson is hitting .318 with two doubles and five RBIs.
“A lot of guys are putting some good swings on the baseball, and just not getting a lot of results,” he said. “I’ve played baseball for a long time, and it’s just kind of how the game works sometimes. You’re going to have your days where you have a jam shot and bloop one through, and you’re going to have days where you’re going to hit the ball 100-plus three times and not get a hit. It’s part of it, but we can do more collectively offensively to put quality at-bats together. That’s what we need to do as a team. We’ve got guys who are trying really hard. It’s not from a lack of effort. Sometimes you’ve just got to say we’ve got to be better.”
Johnson has noticed some pressing.
“Guys are trying to create something, and we just couldn’t get anything sustained again,” he said. “Get a good at-bat, there’s a bad at-bat mixed in there, and then a good at-bat. But we don’t get the result. We couldn’t sustain anything. But you’ve got to have enough in the tank to live through those things.”
At least, Vanderbilt (10-7) is struggling, too, and is at No. 225 in RPI.
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