By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
BATON ROUGE — The margin in SEC baseball between winning or losing a weekend series is often minuscule.
After No. 4 LSU beat No. 6 Florida 6-1 in the series opener last Friday night in Alex Box Stadium, the Tigers were two strikes away from capturing a 4-3 win in Saturday night’s Game 2 to take the series.
Instead, Florida right fielder Ty Evans slapped a game-tying, two-out single in the ninth inning on a 1-1 pitch from LSU reliever Nate Ackenhausen. The Gators won 6-4 on first baseman Jac Caglianone’s two-run homer in the 11th inning.
Then in the series-deciding Game 3 on Sunday afternoon, Caglianone showed why he was the SEC’s preseason Player of the Year. As Florida’s starting pitcher, he allowed just 3 hits and 2 runs in 7 innings as the Gators scored a 12-2 run-rule victory in eight innings.
So instead of exiting its first two SEC weekends at .500 after losing the opening league series at Misissippi State, the Tigers dropped both series. After hosting Southeastern Louisiana tonight at 6:30, the now No. 8 ranked Tigers (19-6, 2-4 SEC) face the ominous task of a three-game SEC series at Arkansas starting Thursday night.
“When you go through tough times, the competitive character gets tested,” Johnson said after Sunday’s loss. “We’re going to need to elevate our grade on that test. I have great faith in the players in terms of the people that they are, and believe that they’ll be up for that challenge.”
While 10 LSU pitchers – three starters and seven relievers – limited Florida to 19 runs in the series (14 less than the 33 scored by Mississippi State – the Tigers allowed 11 runs with two outs.
After the first two SEC weekends, LSU’s opposition has scored 65 percent of its runs (34 of 52) with two outs. Combined with LSU’s anemic offense, which is hitting .236 (47 of 199) in SEC play so far, it’s a recipe for losing in a league with six teams ranked in the top 10 including LSU’s next three SEC opponents.
The normally mild-mannered Johnson was ejected at the end of the fifth inning of Sunday’s game.
LSU’s Jared Jones hit a two-out solo homer off Caglianone. Both players exchanged words with each other, followed by umpire Michael Banks to issue unsportsmanlike conduct warnings to Johnson and Florida head coach Kevin O’Sullivan.
Caglianone then struck out Tigers’ catcher Hayden Travinski to end the inning. As Travinski turned and walked back to the LSU dugout, Caglianone began yapping at Travinski.
Johnson immediately rushed out of the dugout and angrily demanded Banks enforce the second violation of the unsportsmanlike conduct rule, which calls for the ejection of the player and the restriction of the head coach to the dugout for the rest of the game or the ejection of the head coach.
“There’s no point in giving a warning if you’re not going to do something about it when something happens 30 seconds after you issued the warning,” Johnson said.
Banks quickly chose to toss Johnson for his animated protest. “It (being ejected) used to be the thing that should fire up the team, which we obviously needed to be fired up,” Johnson said. “But I’ve felt this way a long time, so this isn’t specific to this team.
“I think they just look at it (at a coach being ejected) as something is really wrong when a coach loses his poise. So, I don’t think it has any value and it clearly didn’t have value for our team. I’ll be staying in the game from this point forward, at least with this team.”
Johnson watched the remaining action on TV until the Tigers were run-ruled in the eighth inning. What he saw – Florida pitchers retiring LSU’s last 9 of 10 batters including the first six via pop-ups – made him nauseous.
“That was tough to watch on a TV,” Johnson said. “It was like you’re dead, you’re actually getting to watch your life play out and you’re disappointed watching that happen.
“(Our) concentration, attitude, effort from the sixth inning on was clearly lacking,” Johnson said. “Saturday was a tough loss. Our expectation (on Sunday) wasn’t winning the series or coming out on top in the game.
“It was that there was no question that it (the game) was more important to us than it was to the opponent. And we fell short of that. Those (last) innings are the most disappointed I’ve been in a long time.”
Two of LSU’s three starting pitchers – Game 1 starter Luke Holman and Game 2 starter Gage Jump— vastly improved their performances after giving up a combined 9 runs (6 earned) and 14 hits with 6 strikeouts and four walks vs. Mississippi State.
In the Tigers’ 6-1 series-opening victory over the Gators, Holman got the win by allowing 1 run and 1 hit in six innings while striking out 13 and walking three. Jump got a “no decision,” giving up 2 runs and 2 hits, striking out 5 and walking 3 in 5.2 innings.
LSU batted. 222 vs. Florida, almost 30 points under the .250 it hit at Mississippi State.
Travinski and designated Ethan Frey were the only Tiger starters who batted over .300 against the Gators.
Former Bossier City Airline standout Travinski hit .333 (3 for 9) with a solo homer, 2 runs scored, 1 RBI, 3 walks and 1 strikeout. Frey started twice and hit .429 (3-for-7) with one RBI and one run scored.
Other Tigers who excelled at the plate at Mississippi State, like third baseman Tommy White, were erased by Florida pitching. White hit .384 with 3 homers, 7 RBI and 4 runs scored vs. MSU, but batted .083 (1 for 12) with 1 run scored against Florida.
LSU’s midweek game vs. Southeastern this evening is a rematch of the Tigers’ 4-3 comeback win over the Lions on March 6 in Hammond. Paxton Kling’s two-run double capped a three-run rally with two outs in the top of the ninth to erase a 3-1 Southeastern lead.
After that, the Tigers have consecutive SEC series at current No. 1 Arkansas (19-3, 5-1 SEC), home vs. Vanderbilt (19-6, 3-3 SEC) and at No. 5 Tennessee (21-4 3-3 SEC).
The last time LSU opened its SEC schedule losing its first three league series was in Paul Mainieri’s last season as head coach in 2021. LSU hasn’t dropped its first four SEC series since 1969.
“We’re in a tough stretch of games right now,” Johnson said. “ And it has a real opportunity to force growth because that only comes when things are a little bit uncomfortable.”
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com
