By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
The best-laid schemes of mice and men – and coaches – go often awry.
Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote something like that in his 1785 poem titled, “To A Mouse.”
He surely didn’t have the LSU baseball team in mind. The game of baseball as we know it was not invented until the 1840s. But the Tigers were the mice, and the Georgia Bulldogs were the men this weekend in Athens, Georgia.
LSU pitchers were scurrying from the mound to the dugout, from the dugout to the bullpen, from the bullpen to the mound, and back to the dugout on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
LSU ties school record for SEC losses in a season with 18 set by 12-34, 6-18 Tigers of 1978. Tigers drop to 29-24, 9-18 w/12-1 loss at Georgia for 4th sweep in last 5 weekends. Goodbye NCAA postseason.https://t.co/BhYmSnNask
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) May 10, 2026
No. 5 Georgia (41-11, 21-6 Southeastern Conference) put up 39 hits with nine home runs and five doubles for 36 runs off 12 pitchers in 11-8, 13-8 and 12-1 wins over the weekend. The “sweep” doesn’t do what Georgia did justice. It was more like Georgia gutted LSU’s whole house all weekend. The Bulldogs, who led 12-3 in the sixth on Saturday, were one run away from back-to-back, mercy, 10-run rule killings.
And the sad thing is LSU coach Jay Johnson had a decent plan, or scheme, going in. With supposed future ace and Major League pitcher William Schmidt and all his NIL money ahead 7-3 going into the fourth inning on Friday, the Tigers looked like they had a chance at winning the first game. Had they held on, that would have been like sweeping a doubleheader, considering what a win over Georgia and its Ratings Percentage Index quotient of 15 could have done for the Tigers.
That easily would have been the highest RPI win of the season for LSU (29-24, 9-18 SEC), which is now out of the NCAA postseason, barring miracles upon miracles in Hoover, Alabama, at the SEC Tournament.
With a win over Georgia in game one Friday, LSU would have two more chances to win the series somehow with Johnson saving both former ace Casan Evans and his hottest pitcher of late, Zac Cowan, for Sunday. And just one win would have been a weekend victory. But the Tigers lost 11-8 Friday as Schmidt and the Tigers’ relievers again couldn’t hold a cold.
Then they had no chance on Saturday in the 13-8 loss, and never were really in the game on Sunday as it was 4-0 after two, 7-1 after four and 11-1 after five. Evans gave up four earned runs on four hits and two walks in just an inning and two thirds. Cowan allowed seven earned runs on eight hits, including two home runs, and three walks in just three and a third innings.
“I always feel good with Zac Cowan and Casan Evans,” Johnson said after the onslaught. “They just got to both of them. They have swung the bat as good as anybody, and they did again today. Best team that we’ve seen.”
It was at least good to get work for Evans, who took the loss to fall to 2-3 with a 5.96 ERA that was 2.05 last year with a 5-1 mark and seven saves. He had missed three straight starts with arm soreness and the recovery from it.
“The more he pitches, the better he is,” Johnson said. “Maybe a little bit of rust, but I thought he competed fine.”
Evans will get another start and a chance to redeem himself against Florida this weekend at Alex Box Stadium in the regular season series finale. He won’t pitch against a better team than Georgia until the 2027 season – if then.
“It’s a long lineup,” Johnson said. “All of them contribute on offense and defense. They’ve got the good mojo – that good synergy that championship teams usually have.”
LSU clearly has not had that since last June during its national championship run in Omaha, Nebraska, at the College World Series.
This June, LSU will be nowhere near Omaha, but that is the destination Johnson will be recruiting to when he starts shopping during the next portal window, June 1-30. He’ll be looking for pitchers and just about everything else.
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