By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson had a great Easter Sunday.
His team came back from a 5-0 deficit and won, 16-6, in historic fashion with a 10-run rally in the 12th inning at Tennessee to take the series two games to one and stay in contention in the Southeastern Conference race at 6-6.
Then he talked to his mother, Beverly. She was watching the game and read her son’s lips when he was chewing out home plate umpire Eric Goshay after Goshay called a third strike on a very low pitch to Cade Arrambide for the second out of the ninth with LSU trailing 5-4 with a runner on first and just before he tossed Johnson.
“Yep,” Johnson said on his radio show Monday night when asked if there were a few “magic” words uttered by him. “My mother was not happy with me, especially on Easter Sunday. But I really believed what I said. Cade Arrambide had hit two home runs at that time, and he’s the go-ahead run at the plate. And I didn’t think the first two pitches were strikes either. But the third one looked so outrageously like a ball, or Levi Clark caught it really, really bad. And he’s a pretty good catcher. At that point, now you’re down to one out.”
Johnson further explained his anger minus any cuss words this time.
“And I thought he took the bat out of maybe the hottest hitter’s hands on the team,” he said. “Took one of our two outs left to work with away in a ballpark where hitting a home run is more likely there than any place you’re going to play in the entire country. And so I let him know I thought it was a terrible call. I used a couple of different words that I won’t use here. I was sticking up for Cade, and like, ‘This is important. You can’t miss that call at this juncture.’ If there’s games that impact your season, I knew yesterday’s game was going to be one of the biggest ones of the season. And I thought it was a poor call, and I let him know it.”
And LSU came back to win it anyway with an RBI single by Jake Brown to tie it 5-5. Then Arrambide hit a grand slam in the top of the 12th for an 11-6 lead in the 10-run rally – the largest ever in an extra inning frame in LSU history.
“At that point, the players were going to do do it, if we were going to win the game from that point forward,” Johnson said. “As soon as I went out there, I knew I wasn’t going to be finishing the game in the dugout.”
Johnson was in an operations room of Lindsey Nelson Stadium after his ejection and said he pounded his fist on a table with delight after the grand slam by Arrambide, who also hit a solo homer in the 11th for a 6-5 lead. But Tennessee tied it 6-6 in its 11th inning. He hit four home runs in all, breaking the LSU record for most home runs by a Tiger in a game at three by many players, including Jake Brown, who did it this season against Sacramento State.
“That was the most beautiful thing I’ve seen on TV in my coaching career,” Johnson said of the slam.
But his fist did some damage.
“I probably broke one of their work stations slamming my fist down,” he said. “Yesterday was awesome. One of the best wins I’ve ever been a part of.”
OMAR SERNA JR. IS FINE AFTER COLLISION
LSU freshman catcher Omar Serna Jr. was checked out for a concussion on Sunday after a collision at home plate, but did not show any symptoms of that. He was taken to a doctor on Monday in Baton Rouge for further evaluation, which also went well.
Johnson said he is fine, but he will not play in the No. 24 Tigers’ next game Tuesday against Bethune-Cookman (6:30 p.m., SEC Network+) as a precaution.
“In real time, it was very scary,” Johnson said of the play at the plate in the third inning. “It was right in front of our dugout, and he got knocked out. His eyes went out immediately. He came back to consciousness really quick. We evaluated him for a concussion.”
Serna was replaced by third string catcher Edward Yamin IV as the other co-starting catcher is Arrambide, and he was at designated hitter as he has been nursing an injured shin. Serna did not return to the game
“He was coherent and talking,” Johnson said. “We got him evaluated Monday. We will not play him Tuesday, but I am very optimistic we’ll have him available this weekend. He’s doing good. He just texted me right now. He’s doing just fine.”
UPCOMING SCHEDULE
No. 24 LSU (22-11, 6-6 SEC) hosts Bethune-Cookman (22-10, 10-2 Southwestern Athletic Conference) at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday (SEC Network+).
The Tigers play a three-game SEC series Friday through Sunday at No. 25 Ole Miss (22-11, 5-7 SEC), which took two over the weekend at No. 21 Florida.
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