By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
For a brief second, LSU coach Jay Johnson had had enough of this one-thing-after-another 2026 season.
-First starting left fielder Chris Stanfield badly bruised his hand sliding into home in the second game of the season.
… And after leading the Tigers in hitting in Southeastern Conference games last year at .326 and hitting .298 overall with a team-high-tying 15 doubles and 31 RBIs in 68 games, the senior did return to action. But he has never been the same, and he also has been out lately with a hamstring injury and is hitting .229 in 28 games with two doubles and nine RBIs.
-No. 2 weekend starter Cooper Moore has not pitched since March 20 against Oklahoma because of a broken bone in his right, pitching arm.
… The junior transfer from Kansas had been off to a solid start at 3-3 with a 3.38 ERA and 39 strikeouts in 32 innings with only seven walks.
-LSU’s best all-around player, junior right fielder Jake Moore, was lost for the season after breaking his hamate bone against Texas A&M on April 19.
… Despite missing the last nine games, Brown still leads LSU with 16 home runs and 49 RBIs and is second in stolen bases with nine in 10 attempts.
-On Friday April 24 just before his scheduled start at Mississippi State, starter Casan Evans was scratched from the lineup with back stiffness.
… Evans, one of the best freshman pitchers in the country in 2025, has not pitched since April 17. He had been struggling anyway at 2-2 with a 5.47 ERA, but he still was a vital cog as the Tigers’ Friday night starter as he went six, five and seven innings in his last three starts. He may return to the mound this weekend at No. 5 Georgia as there is no structural damage, Johnson said Wednesday.
-Just after taking over third base at mid-season, sophomore John Pearson also went down on April 24 with a hamstring injury.
… He only returned to the lineup on Tuesday and did go 2-for-5 with three RBIs and a home run.
-But also on Tuesday, Johnson learned that budding freshman catcher Omar Serna Jr. – third on the team in average at .319 with seven home runs and 34 RBIs – had back soreness and couldn’t play against Tulane.
… Serna has a .536 slugging percentage with four home runs in his last six SEC games and a .400 on-base percentage.
“I’m like, ‘What now?” Johnson said to reporters Wednesday of his initial reaction on Tuesday. “Omar had been playing so well.”
And he laughed, because he had to. It’s been that kind of season.
Serna, though is expected to return to the lineup for a critical series for LSU (29-21, 6-15 SEC) at SEC-leading Georgia (38-11, 18-6 SEC) this weekend after missing the Tulane game. He was scheduled to visit a doctor on Wednesday.
“Nothing should hold him out,” Johnson said. “What can he tolerate? For the last seven days, he tolerated pretty good. I’m proud of him.”
Serna was 5-for-12 with four RBIs, a home run and five runs scored with a bad back against South Carolina over the weekend.
“That’s a lot of toughness to play through that,” Johnson said. “He just didn’t feel great yesterday. He wants to play.”
What could happen next to this team?
“I’m just trying to go with what we have,” Johnson said.
“Some really bad luck,” Johnson said. “Like the hamate thing (with Jake Brown) is kind of like a fluke deal. You can’t like, ‘Do this,’ to prevent it. Chris Stanfield – he’s at risk all the time because he plays so hard. Cooper Moore was kind of a freak deal. Unfortunately, it all kind of came around on us all at once. But I’m proud of the way the guys are competing in spite of that. There are not many programs that could withstand all of that and have important baseball with six games to play (in the regular season).”
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