By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
BATON ROUGE – It sounds odd when you say LSU’s 2025 baseball season is about to get real for the No. 7-ranked Tigers.
After all, they’ve already won four of their six league series in a 16-team SEC projected to earn 13 NCAA tournament bids, four top 8 seeds, and seven schools hosting regionals.
But how often can seven-time national champion LSU say it will play both College World Series finalists from a year ago in the next two weekends? And then face a team currently ahead of the Tigers in the national polls and the SEC race?
Before LSU (34-8, 12-6 SEC) travels to 2024 CWS runners-up Texas A&M next weekend followed by home series against No. 5 Arkansas, it has a gargantuan battle in Alex Box Stadium vs. 2024 national champs No. 6 Tennessee (34-7, 12-6 SEC) starting with tonight’s 6:30 series opener.
“If there was a (ESPN) College Baseball GameDay, they’d probably be here,” Tigers’ fourth-year head coach Jay Johnson said of the enormity of anticipating one of the nation’s best matchups of the regular season.
Maybe so.
Yet the wear and tear of the weekend-to-weekend grind in college baseball’s undisputed toughest league has the Tigers and Vols fading a bit in the last two or three weeks.
After LSU’s series sweep at then-No. 9 Oklahoma three weeks ago when the Tigers’ pitching staff allowed no earned runs, LSU was swept two weeks ago at then-No. 9 Auburn and struggled at home to beat then-No. 15 Alabama 2 games to 1 last weekend.
Even worse, LSU suffered a stunning 13-3 non-conference run-rule weather-delayed home loss in seven innings to Northwestern State on Tuesday night.
“You’ve got to flush it and attack the weekend,” said LSU senior right fielder Josh Pearson, who hit a second-inning solo homer vs. the Demons for a 2-0 lead.
The Tigers played so poorly that Johnson was at a loss for words to deliver a postgame speech to his stunned team. It’s the first time this season LSU rolled over and played dead, failing to respond to early adversity such as NSU’s six-run third inning following a 1 hour and 33-minute lightning delay after the game had already started 30 minutes late because of a torrential late-afternoon downpour.
Johnson took responsibility for the loss, which was the first time in the Tigers’ history that they suffered a run-rule defeat at the hands of a non-conference opponent. He tampered with the starting lineup, moving first baseman Jared Jones from first base to third base and outfielder Jake Brown to first base.
While Brown hit a solo homer, Jones went 1 for 3 with a strikeout and committed two fielding errors.
“We played our team wrong the other day,” Johnson said. “This year, we’ve played our team the right way more often than we haven’t. But it’s a painful lesson, you know?
“I tell the team we want to have as much inexpensive experience as we possibly can. Losing a game to me is expensive. It’s not fatal. But I would never undermine or hurt our team’s ability to win with any decision I make.”
Tennessee has lost two of its last three SEC series. The Vols won openers at home to Texas A&M three weeks ago and at Kentucky last weekend before losing the last two games of each series.
But while LSU sleepwalked its way through the Northwestern State loss, the Vols on the same night scored an 11-1 run-rule seven-inning home win over non-conference foe Lipscomb.
“Based on last weekend, there’s a sense of urgency as you get closer to May,” said Tennessee’s Tony Vitello, who has won almost 73 percent of his games in his nine seasons as the Vols’ head coach, including three CWS appearances in the last four years. “That’s when you want to know who your best guys are and where your best guys need to go.
“I do think this group likes being on the road together. Having said that, you’re going into a place (LSU) that’s a difficult to win as anywhere in the country.
“They’ve had success, they’ve got their style, and they roll with a certain environment. When you go down there and the bus pulls up (at the stadium), you can smell there’s some pretty good cooking going on even if you don’t get to eat any of it.”
No. 7 LSU (34-8 overall, 12-6 SEC) vs. No. 8 Tennessee (34-7, 12-6 SEC), Alex Box Stadium, Baton Rouge SCHEDULE/PITCHING MATCHUP
Game 1: Today, 6:30 p.m. CT (SEC Network+)
LSU – So. LH Kade Anderson (6-1, 3.92 ERA, 57.1 IP, 91 SO, 13 BB)
TENNESSEE – Jr. RH Liam Doyle (7-1, 2.48 ERA, 58 IP, 104 SO, 17 BB)
Game 2: Saturday, 7 p.m. CT (ESPNU)
LSU – Jr. RH Anthony Eyanson (6-1, 3.52 ERA, 53.2 IP, 83 SO, 21 BB)
TENNESSEE – Jr. RH Marcus Phillips (2-3, 2.96 ERA, 48.2 IP, 62 SO, 17 BB)
Game 3: Sunday, 2 p.m. CT (SEC Network)
LSU – TBA
TENNESSEE – Fr. RH Tegan Kuhns (2-2, 3.42 ERA, 23.2 IP, 24 SO, 10 BB)
LSU IN SEC THIS YEAR
Series wins: 3-0 vs. Missouri, 3-0 vs. Mississippi State, 3-0 at Oklahoma, 2-1 vs. Alabama. Series losses: 1-2 at Texas, 0-3 at Auburn.
TENNESSEE IN SEC THIS YEAR
Series wins: 3-0 vs. Florida, 2-1 at Alabama, 3-0 at South Carolina, 2-1 at Ole Miss. Series losses: 1-2 vs. Texas A&M, 1-2 at Kentucky.
LSU-TENNESSEE SERIES
LSU leads the all-time series 62-33 but is 7-11 vs. Tennessee since Tony Vitello became the Vols’ head coach in 2018. Tennessee has won four straight games over LSU, including a three-game sweep in Knoxville last season, followed by a 4-3 win over the Tigers in the 2024 SEC tournament championship game. Fourth-year LSU head coach Jay Johnson is 4-7 vs. the Vols, all four wins in 2023, including two in the College World Series.
A LOOK AT LSU
LSU is No. 2 in the SEC in team batting average (.316) as well as on-base percentage (.430), hits (441), doubles (94), and fewest times struck out per game (7.02). The Tigers’ pitching staff is No. 5 in ERA (3.82), No. 4 in opponent batting average (.219), and No. 2 in strikeouts (467). Junior first baseman Jared Jones is No. 3 in the SEC in RBI (55), No. 4 in hits (60), No. 4 in total bases (111), No. 8 in home runs (13), No. 10 in runs (47) and No. 10 in batting average (.359). Freshman leftfielder Derek Curiel is No. 5 in walks (35), No. 6 in doubles (13), No. 6 in hits (58), No. 6 in on-base percentage (.495), and No. 9 in batting average (.369). Junior second baseman Daniel Dickinson is No. 8 in the SEC in on-base percentage (.489). Sophomore left-hander Kade Anderson is No. 2 in strikeouts (91) and No. 3 in the league in innings pitched (57.1). Junior right-hander Anthony Eyanson is No. 4 in strikeouts (83).
A LOOK AT TENNESSEE
Tennessee is No. 3 in the SEC in batting average (.308), No. 2 in home runs (97), and No. 2 in RBI (356). The Volunteers’ pitching staff is No. 2 in the league in ERA (3.17), No. 3 in strikeouts (464), and No. 3 in opposing batting average (.211). and it has 340 strikeouts in 330 innings while limiting opponents to a .249 batting average. Shortstop Gavin Kilen, a Louisville transfer, is hitting a team-leading .412 with five doubles, three triples, 11 homers, and 28 RBI. Centerfielder Hunter Ensley is tied for No. 7 in the SEC in RBI (47) and is tied for No. 6 in doubles (.213). First baseman Andrew Fischer is tied for No. 2 in home runs (16) and is No. 2 in walks (43). Starting pitcher Liam Doyle is No. 2 in ERA (2.43) and No. 1 in strikeouts (104) and innings pitched (58).
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com