By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
The way LSU has played baseball too often this season, it’s amazing its record is as good as it is at 22-13 and 6-7 in the Southeastern Conference.
On Friday night, for example, in its 6-3 loss at Ole Miss, the Tigers played like a team that could be 18-17 and 2-11.
But forget the wins and losses, LSU is just not playing the game right, even sometimes when it wins. And for a hard-nosed, detail-oriented, scientific-like coach such as Jay Johnson, it is killing him. And he can’t seem to fix it.
LSU only made one error, but it got some friendly score keeping and made some miscues that are beyond the box score, particularly in Ole Miss’ three-run eighth inning when it took its 6-3 lead. After Tristan Bisetta led off that inning with a single, Judd Utermark hit a double-play ball to shortstop Steven Milam, who pitched to freshman second baseman Ethan Clauss. But Clauss didn’t get his foot on the bag and did not make a good throw to first. Everybody’s safe.
Will Furniss followed with an infield single that could’ve been ruled a throwing error against third baseman Seth Dardar to load the bases with nobody out. The next three batters drove in runs, and it was over.
LSU has been the worst fielding team in the SEC for much of this season as it entered this series at .963 with 45 errors at the halfway point of the season. Make that 46 after Friday. The Tigers made only 44 errors in all of last season and fielded at .981.
“I hate to make comparisons to last year’s championship team,” Johnson said after the game. “But we fielded at .981, and we’re not doing that now.”
LSU had runners on the corners with two outs after taking a 2-0 lead in the first inning on a Jake Brown two-run homer. Cade Arrambide had singled and reached third on Mason Braun’s single. Ole Miss ace Hunter Elliott was in trouble as he pitched to Omar Serna Jr. with LSU threatening to bust the game open. But Arrambide got picked off leaning to far off of third base for no sensible reason to retire the side.
In the fourth inning while trailing 3-2 and Casan Evans pitching well as usual, LSU put runners on the corners again when Mason Braun doubled and Serna singled. But Elliott struck out Dardar looking and got John Pearson swinging.
In the sixth, Steven Milam singled and Serna singled to put runners on the corners, then second and third when Serna got to second on a wild pitch. But Elliott struck out Dardar swinging.
Braun singled to lead off the eighth, but got picked off by the pitcher at first base.
The Tigers often look like a team that doesn’t practice.
“It’s not about speeches or anything,” said Johnson, whose tried that. “We need to play baseball better. It’s just literally playing our brand of winning baseball.”
Even after the 16-6 win at Tennessee Sunday in 12 innings after trailing 5-0 after four innings, Johnson said, “We have left maybe a lot to be desired from a baseball playing standpoint.”
Maybe?
LSU led the SEC with 47 wild pitches coming into this series – 14 more than second place Kentucky with 33. Texas A&M had only nine. LSU pitchers were third in the SEC with 48 hit batsman entering this series and tied with Mississippi State for most passed balls with 12. That’s almost like Little League numbers.
“It’s frustrating to me because these are like staples of our winning formula,” said Johnson, who did win two national championships of the previous three seasons. “And we’re not doing it right now.”
LSU was 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position on Friday. It left eight runners on base after leaving 15 stranded in the 10-7 loss to Bethune-Cookman. In the seventh inning against Bethune-Cookman, LSU loaded the bases with nobody out and suffered back-to-back-to-back strikeouts by Milam, Brown and Pearson.
“And that’s putting a ton of pressure on the pitching staff, which did a great job tonight,” Johnson said.
“Yeah, it’s tough. Tough loss,” Johnson said. “And that’s either fixed through coaching them better, fixed through recruiting or fixed through players getting past failure, playing as good as they can.”
Too often, the same players are making the mistakes or not coming through.
“The truth is in the middle, probably, somewhere, but we’ve got to get it right,” Johnson said.
Most of LSU’s mistakes can be avoided by players who are not even talented doing the simplest of things – be smart on the bases, touch the base for force-outs, catch the ball, throw accurately, and pitchers be effectively wild, not just wild so you don’t hit batters and miss your catcher.
There is a lot of talent on this team that hasn’t showed it knows how to play baseball.
And that’s the opposite of Jay Johnson teams.
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