By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
OXFORD, Miss. – LSU head baseball coach Jay Johnson once said in the Tigers’ 2023 national season that he slept well the night before pitcher Paul Skenes was scheduled to start.
He said similar things last year about Kade Anderson and Anthony Eyanson, the bell cows of the 2025 national title team pitching staff.
Why?
Johnson knew pitching wins from that trifecta were virtually automatic. They were a collective 37-5 in 56 starts, averaging 9.4 strikeouts per game with a combined 2.60 ERA.
This season, Johnson’s inconsistent sleep patterns are directly related to his up-and-down team as the 24th-ranked Tigers (22-12 overall, 6-6 SEC) open a league road series at No. 25 Ole Miss (23-11, 5-7 SEC) here tonight.
He doesn’t have a starting pitcher or reliever he considers an automatic win or save. He has one starting infielder (shortstop Steven Milam) who can make any play on any ball, and three others who make the most basic fielding plays an adventure.
He doesn’t have disciplined hitters throughout his starting lineup as he did on his national championship teams.
So, Johnson’s fifth Tigers’ squad remains a work in progress. The team that supposedly “turned the corner” when it launched seven homers in last Sunday’s series-deciding 16-6 win at Tennessee in 12 innings is the same team that jogged in place in Wednesday night’s stunning 10-7 home loss to Bethune-Cookman, the Southwestern Athletic Conference co-leader from Daytona Beach, Fla.
“We structure our program around consistency, mental and physical training, and we haven’t gotten that (consistency),” Johnson said. “We’ve got to keep chopping wood.”
The same Tigers that fell behind Tennessee 5-0 on Sunday, all unearned runs thanks to three third-inning fielding errors on basic baseball plays, is the same team that slammed three straight solo homers in the seventh inning to ignite the comeback.
“Guys are striking out, we’re gonna walk guys, it’s part of the game,” said LSU reliever Gavin Guidry, who allowed one run on two hits in the final five innings last Sunday at Tennessee. “But it’s just not letting things pile up and stack up, which I feel like happened last (Wednesday) night (in the loss to Bethune-Cookman). Every mistake that we made happened all in one inning (Bethune’s five-run seventh).
“And that’s when you lose games. Whenever you give up those big innings like that, like you make an error, you can walk a guy, but if you stretch it out throughout nine innings, they usually don’t hurt you as much. But whenever they just pile up is whenever they put up crooked numbers. That’s the biggest thing you have to continue to avoid.
“Shrink the mistakes and not let things pile on top of each other, and good things will tend to happen.”
Like when the LSU women’s basketball team played at Ole Miss this past season, the Tigers expect an extremely hostile Rebels’ home crowd to greet them.
Every Tiger sports team has become Ole Miss fans’ mortal enemy since LSU hired Lane Kiffin away from Ole Miss as head football coach shortly after the regular season ended last November.
No. 24 LSU (22-12 overall, 6-6 SEC) vs. No. 25 OLE MISS (23-11, 5-7 SEC), Oxford-University Stadium, Oxford
Game 1: Today, 6:30 p.m. CT (SEC Network+)
LSU – LSU – So. RH Casan Evans (2-1, 4.97 ERA, 41.2 IP, 21 BB, 59 SO)
OM – Jr. LH Hunter Elliott (3-1, 3.79 ERA, 40.1 IP, 26 BB, 60 SO)
Game 2: Saturday 4 p.m. CT (SEC Network+)
LSU – So. RH William Schmidt (4-2, 2.63 ERA, 41.0 IP, 14 BB, 56 SO)
OM – So. RH Cade Townsend (2-1, 1.82 ERA, 29.2 IP, 7 BB, 46 SO)
Game 3: Sunday, 1:30 p.m. CT (SEC Network+)
LSU – Sr. RH Grant Fontenot (0-0, 1.50 ERA, 12.0 IP, 7 BB, 15 SO)
OM – So. RH Taylor Rabe (3-1, 3.20 ERA, 25.1 IP, 4 BB, 32 SO)
LSU VS. OLE MISS SERIES
LSU leads the all-time series (which began in 1906) 185-160. The Tigers have won nine of the past 13 regular-season series over the Rebels, including three-game sweeps in 2023 and 2025.
A LOOK AT LSU
LSU is No. 6 in the SEC with a .288 team batting average, and the Tigers are No. 13 in pitching with a 4.58 team ERA. . .Centerfielder Derek Curiel is hitting 500 (11-for-22) in his last five games with one triple, two homers, 11 RBI and eight runs scored. He hit grand slams in back-to-back games on March 31 vs. Southern and last Friday at Tennessee, becoming the first LSU player to hit grand slams in consecutive games since Sean Ochinko accomplished the feat in March 2009. . .In his four SEC relief appearances this season versus Vanderbilt, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Tennessee, Zac Cowan has worked a combined 12.1 innings, posting a 0.00 ERA with three hits, one walk, 16 strikeouts and a .071 opponent batting average. . . LSU’s 10 runs in the top of the 12th inning last Sunday at Tennessee are the most in an extra-inning frame in Tigers’ history.
A LOOK AT OLE MISS
The Rebels are No. 15 in the SEC with a .256 team batting average, and No. 5 with a 3.70 team ERA. The pitching staff has recorded 390 strikeouts in 294.2 innings while allowing 32 home runs and a .235 opponent batting average. . . The Rebels’ offense is led by outfielder Tristan Bissetta, who’s hitting .331 with six doubles, 14 homers and 38 RBI. Infielder Judd Utermark is batting .298 with seven doubles, 13 homers and 32 RBI, and infielder Will Furniss, the son of former LSU All-American first baseman Eddy Furniss, is hitting .297 with six doubles, two homers and 22 RBI.
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com