By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports
BATON ROUGE – It started with LSU reliever Gavin Guidry two strikes away from recording a win in the Tigers’ SEC season opener at Vanderbilt on March 31 when he gave up a two-run walk-off homer.
It ended Wednesday night with LSU third baseman John Pearson, representing the potential game-winning run, slapping a game-ending groundball in a SEC baseball tournament second-round loss to Auburn.
First SEC game, last conference game, 15th league game, it really didn’t matter. LSU head coach Jay Johnson’s fifth Tigers’ team didn’t make the plays necessary to win games all season.
The result was a 30-28 overall record, 9-21 in the SEC (a school record for most league losses in a season), and no NCAA Tournament appearance for the first time since 2011.
“We need to support our flaws better,” Johnson said after Auburn’s 3-1 win sent LSU home for the summer. “We’ve got to go to work on that. It’s a full deal… coaching, recruiting, development, program culture.
“We’re a little short in a lot of areas. We lost a lot of close games, and that’s been a hallmark of why we have two (national championships) in the (first) four years. We’ve been able to be on the right side of those games, like a game like tonight, and we just couldn’t do it against the best teams.”
So, exactly how did LSU take a swan dive off the national title mountain top in the gutter of America’s toughest college baseball conference?
There are several reasons for the Tigers’ shocking perfect storm of terrible baseball:
- Transfer portal failures –Until this season, Johnson had been a transfer portal wizard.
LSU wouldn’t have won its 2023 national title without transfers pitcher Paul Skenes (Air Force), third baseman Tommy White (North Carolina State), and relievers Riley Cooper (Arizona), Thatcher Hurd (UCLA) and Nate Ackenhausen (Eastern Oklahoma Community College).
A year ago, transfers second baseman Daniel Dickinson (Utah Valley), catcher Luis Hernandez (Indiana State), starting pitcher Anthony Eyanson and reliever Zac Cowan (Wofford) were indispensable pieces of the Tigers’ 2025 national champion squad.
“We had nine juniors sign a pro contract off of last year’s national championship team,” Johnson said. “You don’t just replace that. We tried. We just didn’t do it.”
Johnson’s transfer portal class of 2026 – infielders Brayden Simpson (High Point) Seth Dardar (Kansas State) and Trent Caraway (Oregon State) and first baseman Zach Yorke (Grand Canyon) – vastly underperformed.
The only transfer who competed admirably was Kansas pitcher Cooper Moore. As LSU’s Saturday starter, he had a 3-3 record and a team-best 3.38 ERA when a stress fracture at the tip of his elbow caused him to miss the last 34 games of the season.
- Injuries –Moore was the first LSU starter with a season-ending injury. Then came junior right fielder Jake Brown, arguably the team’s best player, hitting .309 with 16 homers and 49 RBI, missing the last 16 games with a broken hamate bone in his hand.
Starting left fielder Chris Stanfield played in just 35 games, nursing a left-hand injury and then hamstring problems. Catchers Cade Arrambide and Omar Serna Jr. played through a myriad of aches and bruises trying to block a school-record 90 wild pitches.
Friday night starting pitcher Casan Evans missed three weeks with a sore arm. William Schmidt, who filled in for Evans, was pulled from the starting lineup 20 minutes before Wednesday’s loss to Auburn because of back tightness.“I want guys that build their life around baseball and not fit baseball into their life,” Johnson said. “It’s tough, because like there’s a couple key guys Moore and Brown) who are like that who missed a lot of time.
“We lost a little bit on the mound when Cooper went out. There’s no question there’s a difference in the pitching while he was in the rotation. And Jake is thought to be the team leader.”
- Awful pitching –LSU’s hurlers combined for a 5.72 ERA, the Tigers’ highest dating back to 1984 when the school started tracking statistics year-to-year.
The 289 walks issued by the pitching staff were the most since 1986. Even in games this season when LSU’s bats produced enough runs for wins, the number of walks and wild pitches from Tigers’ pitchers resulted in too many free passes for opponents and losses.
Johnson and his staff had a 6½-hour meeting on Monday in Birmingham before the league tournament started on Wednesday. The topic was examining every facet of the program.
“We’ve had a lot of good fortune,” Johnson said. “Baseball sometimes is gonna baseball you. Sometimes life doesn’t go the way that you want it.
“There was a little bit of a stretch (in season) here where I felt like I’m paying for some sins that helped us get the two championships.
“I feel bad because we didn’t get to where we needed to be, or wanted to be, or where I think this team could have been. I don’t know that I’ve ever said that in my entire career, and that stings.
“That’s why there will be a ton of not just reflection, but also action.”
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com