LSU baseball fans can be a spoiled lot
Published 6:00 pm Monday, June 26, 2017
LSU’s Michael Papierski, right, is greeted by Josh Smith (4) and Beau Jordan after hitting a three-run home run against Oregon State during a College World Series baseball game Saturday, June 24, 2017, in Omaha, Neb.
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You knew about LSU six trips to the College World Series, all of which ended in purple and gold dog piles.
Florida will be making its third appearance in the big show tonight, and the Gators thus far have nothing to show for the effort.
Huh?
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LSU must be, like, “So, how does that work? You mean, you get that close, a legit chance to take the thing, and then don’t win it? I don’t understand.
“That’s crazy. You get to the finals — it’s automatic — you bring home the hardware.”
Not always, Florida might counter.
The Gators, in fact, have never won a game in the championship round, a skid that now stands at 0-4 and counting.
“So you’re saying it’s possible,” LSU might counter, “to get everybody in the state headed en masse, verily stampeding to Omaha, and yet there could be a chance they’ll slinker back home disappointed.
“Interesting. Very interesting. Who knew?”
LSU baseball fans are a spoiled lot.
Getting here is their minimum requirement. Else, the season is dud.
Head coach Paul Mainieri understands that, and said it applies somewhat to his counterpart, Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan.
“Kevin I don’t get paid to coach in Gainesville and Baton Rouge,” Mainieri said. “They pay us to coach in Omaha. That’s where our goal is every year, to get here, and win here.”
For him, at least, the “winning” part applies.
LSU fans don’t know any other outcome. They are some kind of spoiled when it comes to assuming LSU will seal the deal.
They don’t have a reference point for failure at this point.
Well, it wasn’t always as easy as Skip Bertman sometimes made it look back in the day.
Sometimes it even involved a Warren Morris moment.
After a while it all kind of started to feel preordained, part of some mystical LSU birthright.
There are more complications now.
This will only be LSU’s second foray into the dicier best two-of-three format. It surprised some fans that it took LSU the full three games to get it done against Texas in 2009.
The reasoning behind going to the three-game series was sound in baseball terms.
When you think of college baseball, you think of those weekend conference series that the schedule is built around.
It’s even spawned position terms like “weekend starter” and “midweek starter” or even the ultimate compliment, the “Friday night starter.”
But it rarely works out that way here in Omaha.
Sometimes you can go overboard in applying logic, especially to an often illogical game.
Never mind that the old format created far more of a buzz — electricity in the air — for that one game than the series does for two or three.
You showed up knowing the national championship was at stake between two teams that had been living separate lives in separate brackets that may or may not have been equal.
Even when you go to a third game, the teams have already gotten a feel for each other.
It’s also never seems to work out quite like a true weekend series.
LSU’s Michael Papierski (2) follows through on his three-run home run against Oregon State in the third inning of an NCAA College World Series baseball elimination game in Omaha, Neb., Saturday, June 24, 2017.
This year is no exception.
Here the midweek games count and count big. You pull no punches in what you do to get to the finals, no matter the pitchers you have to use.
So both LSU and Florida, with two of the better staffs on campus, will be scrambling a bit to patch together a rotation for the game’s biggest stage.
LSU ace Alex Lange can start, but not until Wednesday since he pitched Friday.
So LSU’s whole strategy seems to be to win one of the first two games to get to Wednesday.
Jared Poché could probably start tonight — he pitched a gem Wednesday against Florida State.
“If we’re going to do that (hold Lange until Wednesday),” Mainieri said, “the thought was we might as well give Poché five days rest. So he’s going to pitch Tuesday.
“We just have to figure out tomorrow’s game.”
It sounds almost like they are conceding it.
The Tigers will start somebody named Russell Reynolds with the Gators countering with future first-round pick Brady Singer, who held LSU to one run in a complete-game victory in March.
Reynolds figures to be just the start of a steady stream of hopefuls from the bullpen, the famed “Johnny Wholestaff” approach.
On paper, it’s a pitching mis-match. But they will still play the game — and the tables could turn after Monday.
LSU got a big break when Florida was stretched into a second semifinal game against TCU, which on Saturday forced the Gators to use ace Alex Faedo, the No. 18 overall pick in the recent Major League draft. He beat LSU 1-0 in March
If he pitches at all in this series, it would be for just an inning or two, and not until Wednesday.
After Singer starts Monday, O’Sullivan isn’t sure what he will do either. He might even start his closer, Michael Byrne on Tuesday.
It would do LSU well to at least lure him out of the bullpen tonight.
But the chess pieces are moving. Grab some popcorn.
