By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
BATON ROUGE – LSU’s 2026 baseball roster has 39 players from 17 states, stretching from California to New York.
But in the defending national champions Tigers’ opening weekend, featuring a three-game sweep of Milwaukee and a Monday night solo win over Kent State, it was a trio of Louisiana homeboys who came roaring out of the dugout.
Junior right fielder Jake Brown of Sulphur belted four homers and nine RBI, redshirt senior transfer infielder Seth Dardar of Mandeville cracked two homers and six RBI and redshirt junior reliever Gavin Guidry of Lake Charles struck 10 of 14 batters and hurled 4.1 shutout innings in his triumphant return from missing all of last season with a back injury.
LSU, ranked No. 1 by Perfect Game and the USBWA and No. 2 by D1 Baseball and Baseball America, sandwiched two run-rule victories (15-5, 21-7) vs. Milwaukee around a 5-3 win and then beat Kent State 10-7 after leading 10-3.
Tigers’ fifth-year head coach Jay Johnson played 33 players in the four games in four days starting last Friday. The six who didn’t play were pitchers.
“I think we have more than nine capable starting players,” Johnson said. “And part of this is you want to win games, like I’m always going to make the decision based on what’s best to win the game, but you want to find out what your best team is.”
The Tigers hit .376 with 25 of their 53 hits for extra bases (14 doubles, 1 triple, 10 homers).
Though LSU’s pitching staff had a shaky 6.00 ERA, 14 Tigers’ hurlers combined for 64 strikeouts, including 49 vs Milwaukee to set a school record for a three-game series.
While LSU’s best starting pitching performance by far was from Kansas junior transfer Cooper Moore in game two vs. Milwaukee (6 innings, 4 hits allowed, 1 run (earned), 11 strikeouts and no walks, Alex Box Stadium was buzzing about Guidry’s return.
After last pitching as LSU’s closer in its national championship clinching victory over Florida in June 2023, he was almost untouchable in two stints this past weekend.
Guidry pitched the final two innings of the season opener against Milwaukee and the last 2.1 innings of Monday’s win over Kent State. He struck out five of the seven Milwaukee batters he faced and repeated the same performance vs. Kent.
“It’s really hard to put into words, you know, being a Louisiana kid and coming to school here, and then kind of having to sit back and watch the guys do it last year, and then feeling like, you know, it’s my turn to kind of go out there and be a competitor again and do what I do,” Guidry said.
“It felt good back out there, and I went punchy, punchy, punchy (his strikeouts). That’s what I enjoy doing.”
Brown, who hit .320 with 48 RBI and eight homers last season (including .324 in LSU’s 11 NCAA Tournament games with one double, one homer, nine RBI and six runs), is off to one of the hottest starts in school history.
He hit .529 in the opening four games with four homers (two each in back-to-back contests vs. Milwaukee and Kent State), a double and nine RBI.
“It’s just a lot of work in the weight room, getting bigger, faster, stronger,” Brown said of his increased power. “I put a lot more focus on working against left-handed pitching and getting more comfortable every day.”
Dardar, a former New Orleans Holy Cross star who hit .326 last season at Kansas State after missing 2024 with an injury in the last of three years playing for Columbia in New York, had a dramatic Tigers’ debut.
With LSU trailing Milwaukee 5-2 through five innings in the opener, Dardar’s two-run pinch-homer in the sixth started a deluge of 13 Tigers’ runs (6 in the seventh, 5 in the eighth) for a run-rule win.
“It’s a little bit emotional just because of the journey that it’s taken me to get to this spot,” Dardar said. “This moment is surreal for not just me, but my family as well. It means so much to them. So now. I’d say we’re all pretty excited.”
LSU hosts Nicholls in a Wednesday 1 p.m. affair before traveling to Jacksonville for the Live Like Lou College Baseball Classic. The Tigers play Indiana at 1 p.m. on Friday, Notre Dame at 11 a.m. on Saturday and UCF at 2 p.m. on Sunday.
Here’s a game-by-game recap of LSU’s opening four games:
Game 1: LSU 15, MILWAUKEE 5 (8 innings) – The first season-opening run rule victory under Johnson arrived late Friday as the Tigers rebounded from a 4-2 deficit and closed with a flourish.
LSU scored 13 runs in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings, finishing with 15 hits, including six doubles and three homers off six Milwaukee pitchers.
Guidry, who missed all of last season with a back injury, was credited with the win after striking out five of seven batters in two scoreless innings.
Kansas State transfer Dardar debuted with a pinch-hit two-run homer and an RBI double.
GAME 2: LSU 5, MILWAUKEE 3 – The Tigers led from start to finish, but it was a struggle Saturday.
LSU got a superb starting pitching performance from Kansas transfer Cooper Moore. He had a career-best 11 strikeouts in six innings.
The Tigers led just 2-1 entering the bottom of the eighth when they scored three runs on centerfielder Derek Curiel’s two-run double and catcher Cade Arrambide’s RBI double.
GAME 3: LSU 21, MILWAUKEE 7 (7 innings) – Brown blasted two homers and had a career-best six RBI Sunday in the Tigers’ second run-rule win. Brown was 3-for-4 on the day with his first career grand slam and a solo homer.
LSU’s 17-hit attack was paced by second baseman Trent Caraway, who had a three-run triple and five RBI, and by centerfielder Derek Curiel, who was 3-for-4 with three RBI.
GAME 4: LSU 10, KENT STATE 7 – A second straight two-homer game by Brown and another clutch relief pitching effort by Guidry helped the Tigers hang on for the Monday night win.
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com