GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
There is a reason LSU junior first baseman Jared Jones looks like a football player at 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds – maybe a tight end or an edge rusher.
“I think he’s one of the strongest human beings I’ve ever seen in a baseball setting and has always been that way,” LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson said before the No. 1 Tigers left for Hoover, Alabama, to play in the Southeastern Conference Tournament.
“He arrived as a beast, and I’ve always thought of him as a beast,” Johnson said.
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No. 3 seed LSU (42-13, 19-11 SEC) plays its first game in the single-elimination tournament Friday (6:30 p.m., SEC Network) against the winner of Thursday’s 11 a.m. game between No. 6 seed Auburn (38-17, 17-13) and 14 seed Texas A&M (29-25, 11-19). Texas A&M eliminated Mississippi State, 11-0, on Wednesday.
In other games Wednesday, No. 8 seed Tennessee beat 9 seed Alabama, 15-10, No. 12 seed Oklahoma defeated 5 seed Georgia, 3-2, and No. 7 seed Ole Miss beat 10 seed Florida, 3-1.
In other games scheduled for Thursday, Tennessee plays No. 1 seed Texas (42-11, 22-18) at 3 p.m., and Oklahoma plays No. 4 seed Vanderbilt (39-16, 19-11) at 6:30 p.m. All games will be televised by the SEC Network until Sunday’s 3 p.m. championship game on ESPN2.
Instead of catching passes or sacking quarterbacks, Jones has been a monster of home run production during his three-year LSU career. His three home runs over two wins at South Carolina last weekend gave him 19 for the season and 61 for his college career. That’s third on LSU’s all-time career list behind first baseman Eddy Furniss with 80 from 1995-98 with two national championships, and catcher Brad Cresse with 78 from 1997-2000 with two national championships.
Jones has one national championship at LSU in 2023 with hopes of a second.
“That’s a pretty good list to be on,” Johnson said. “The tactical parts of becoming a good hitter has allowed him to utilize that natural God-given ability to turn it into third all-time in homers at LSU.”
And Jones could instead be preparing for his fourth season of football or Georgia Tech, which offered him a scholarship when he was an offensive tackle at Walton High in Marietta, Georgia, as a sophomore in 2019.
“I quit football after my sophomore year,” he said. “Our football coach (Daniel Brunner) wasn’t too happy. He still asked me to play every couple of weeks.”
And Johnson thanks him for choosing baseball almost as often.
“He’s eliminated the chase (of bad pitches), minimized the swing and miss and put together the power contact and the plate discipline,” he said.
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Jones has streamlined himself from 260 pounds at the end of last season to about 240 now. He can thank LSU strength and conditioning coach Chris Martin, who got to LSU last August after six years in similar roles with the Houston Astros.
“The weight room for me has been about maintaining the strength and then adding some mobility and range of motion, flexibility and being able to move around first base,” Jones said.
Johnson has noticed.
“This year he’s leaned out a bit and become more athletic and a good mover, which helps him on offense and defense,” he said. “The weight training is an essential part of this thing, and like I say, we hit the jackpot with Chris Martin. He’s been amazing and a huge part of this team’s success. Not just with player transformation, but with engagement, energy and the connection to the team and the program that we have. The connection with the players has been awesome.”
In other words, Martin gets results.
“I go three times a week to the weight room, sometimes four,” LSU ace left-handed pitcher Kade Anderson said. “Chris is something.”
Jones likes the results Martin provides.
“I’m about 15 or 20 pounds lighter this year,” he said. “That was on purpose. I felt slower last year. I wanted to lose a little bit and move better. But not necessarily lose any power.”
Jones is down nine home runs from his 28 total of last season, but LSU should have double-digit games remaining should it reach the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.
“I know they’ll come,” Jones said. “I hit 28 last year. I’m at whatever I’m at this year. But a lot of baseball ahead of us.”
Jones can also often be seen talking to his bat as he approaches the batter’s box, but it’s more than that.
“I say the Hail Mary walking up to the plate,” he said. “I’ve been doing that for about a year and a half. Then I write a cross and number three (the Holy Trinity) in the dirt.”
It’s all part of the plan to return to the College World Series after LSU failed to reach the Super Regional round last season.
“The way things ended last year definitely left a sour taste in my mouth,” Jones said before the season began. “We’ve talked a lot about it. It’s definitely a motivating factor for us. And we’re going to use that as fuel.”
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