By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
BATON ROUGE – Two weeks ago, defending national baseball champion LSU looked as good as its No. 1 or No. 2 ranking (depending on one of four polls).
The Tigers were 8-0, blitzing through the Live Like Lou Baseball Classic in Jacksonville, hammering Power 5 Conference opponents Indiana, Notre Dame and UCF by a combined score of 34-11.
Two weeks later, LSU is in the worst non-conference slump of Jay Johnson’s five seasons as its head coach.
The now 12-5 Tigers have lost five of their last nine games (including four L’s in the last seven days) as their batting average plummeted from .397 to .291. On Sunday night in Alex Box Stadium, LSU lost a three-game series to a non-Power 4 Conference opponent for just the second time in the last 19 seasons.
After blowing out Sacramento State in a 15-4 7-inning run-rule win in Friday’s opener, the visiting Hornets edged LSU 5-4 on Saturday and won easily 6-1 on Sunday.
“Obviously, look around here (at LSU’s eight national championship banners), and you know there’s not much adversity here ever,” said Johnson, who coached at Point Loma Nazarene, Nevada and Arizona before taking over LSU in 2022. “Luckily, I have coached two programs where I didn’t have one player who had ever gone to Omaha (for the College World Series).
“You work your way through these things.”
With one non-conference home game left vs. Creighton on Tuesday before opening SEC play at Vanderbilt on Friday, the timing couldn’t be worse for the Tigers’ tailspin.
In losses this past week to Northeastern on Monday, at UL-Lafayette on Wednesday, and to Sacramento State Friday and Saturday, 15 LSU relievers combined for a hefty 7.13 ERA. The Tigers also committed seven errors.
LSU never led in the losses, getting outscored 23-4 in the first six innings, including 16-0 in the first three innings.
It trailed Northeastern 10-0 after three innings, UL-Lafayette 6-2 through six innings, and Sacramento State 5-0 through the top of the eighth on Saturday and through six innings on Sunday.
“A lot of guys are putting some good swings on the baseball and just not getting a lot of results for it,” said LSU second baseman Brayden Simpson, whose RBI single in the seventh inning accounted for the Tigers’ only run on Sunday. “I’ve played baseball for a long time, and it’s kind of just how the game works. There are ebbs and flows. You can go out there and hit the ball 110 miles per hour four times in one night and basically not get on base.”
After the Tigers lost to Northeastern and UL-Lafayette, it appeared they had figured out things when they hit six homers in Friday’s run-rule win over Sacramento State.
Left fielder Jake Brown joined a select group of Tigers as he hit three home runs in one game.
“We had a real, real good practice yesterday that led to a lot of what you saw tonight,” Brown said after Friday’s game. “We watched back every offensive pitch of the ULL game, just picking together pieces, like, what can we improve on? What are we doing well, and how do we get back to that team that we were just two or so weeks ago? It’s swinging at the right pitches, not getting ourselves out, which is a lot of what we done the last few games that we played.”
But the Tigers didn’t maintain that plate approach in the final two games of the series.
“Taking a pitch is our best friend right now, far more good is happening when we don’t swing than when we do swing,” Johnson said. “There’s some management of at-bats that we’ll reign in and take over, especially behind when you need base runners.”
Here’s a recap of the series:
GAME 1: LSU 15, SACRAMENTO STATE 4 – The Tigers unloaded the frustration of a rare two-game non-conference losing streak by pounding six home runs in Friday night’s series opener.
Brown became the 13th player in LSU history to hit three homers in a game. He was 4 for 5 with a trio of dingers, a single, six RBI and four runs.
GAME 2: SACRAMENTO STATE 5, LSU 4 – After Brown hit three homers in Friday’s opener, LSU had just three hits total in Saturday’s loss. Sacramento State second baseman Cameron Sewell drove in five runs, including his grand slam in the top of the eighth inning for a 5-0 lead.
Six Sacramento State pitchers held LSU to a Cade Arrambide second-inning single, a Zack Yorke eighth-inning RBI double and Daniel Harden’s ninth-inning leadoff solo homer.
GAME 3: SACRAMENTO STATE 6, LSU 1 – Sacramento State pitcher Carson Timothy limited LSU to one run in 6.2 innings on Sunday. The Hornets took a 2-0 lead in the third inning on centerfielder Sam Harry’s RBI double and scored on an LSU error.
Sacramento State extended its advantage to 5-0 in the sixth inning when shortstop Jace Jeremiah drew a bases-loaded walk and pinch hitter Michael Perazzo slapped a two-run single.
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com
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