LSU adopting underdog mentality

Published 7:00 pm Friday, February 16, 2018

So Paul Mainieri and LSU are off the hook this year, it seems.

It’s a rare year for LSU baseball, just a year after finishing as the national runner-up to Florida.

True, only at LSU would that be considered a big fat, kerplunk, worthy of witty memes and other Twitter mischief.

But this year it doesn’t appear there will be that pressure.

It appears they aren’t going to be their usual selves this time around, what with the heart of the team — middle infielders Cole Freeman and Kramer Robertson — gone, along with the entire weekend pitching rotation vanishing with them.

Maybe the Tigers can set some realistic goals like most programs. You know, just hope and maybe scratch their way into the NCAA Tournament with a couple of breaks here and there.

The preseason predictions, for instance, have the Tigers finishing fourth in the SEC — the SEC West Division, that is, which doesn’t include Florida from the East, the unanimous pick as the national No. 1.

The preseason polls, which always tend to overrate the Tigers based on reputation and habit, don’t have LSU any higher than 10th, and the Tigers can found as far down the pecking order as No. 17.

Some of that may be the sympathy vote kicking in. Mainieri says he still hasn’t gotten over the shame of finishing No. 2 in the nation –— LSU’s other six trips to the finals all ended in dog piles — and claims he probably never will.

At least he doesn’t have to worry about it this year. College baseball pundits have spoken.

LSU baseball fans can relax this season and be happy with any crumbs that come their way.

There is one problem, though. That memo never made it to Alex Box Stadium. It never got the directive.

Maybe on the outside it looks like a — dare we say it? — rebuilding, transitional year for the Tigers.

But LSU fans don’t care.

This is a program where it’s a big event when the baseball office releases the list of players’ “walk-up” songs.

So come the first of June they expect to be packing the Box for another regional en route to hosting a super regional and yet another birthright trip to Omaha.

Guess what? So does Mainieri.

From the outside looking in, the experts can downplay expectations all they want.

But they get ignored around LSU baseball.

“I don’t care if people want to underestimate us,” Mainieri said. “It doesn’t matter. Every year the goal will be the same -— to win the last game of the year.

“I like this team. I’m excited about seeing their improvement as the year goes on.”

How does he know his fan base feels the same way? Or that some like to point out that he’s won “only” one national championship, in 2009. 

“I don’t have my head in the sand,” he said. “I want to win another national championship as much as anything. It’s killing me. I feel like we’ve had a handful of teams that were capable that didn’t.

“Winning that last game of the year — I had that feeling once, and I want to have it again … I want to have it a third time.”

So despite some holes, he’s not ruling out this year just because he has some holes to plug. 

It’s a long process, but don’t put it past him.

Baseball, more than other college sport, is a long season, a work in progress that meanders along with highs and lows and streaks and slumps and even some midweek losses that will baffle the lingering football mentality of many fans.

You don’t win any championships in February. And you never know when a Stony Brook may raise its head.

But few are better than making it all somehow, eventually, come together than Mainieri.

For your convenience, Page B2 contains a handy chart outlining Mainieri’s projected starting lineup.

It’s in plain newsprint, but it should be etched in wet sand.

Mainieri is a born tinkerer and will spend from now to June not afraid shake things up, sometimes just on a hunch, often on a whim. In years past he’s even gotten away with fixing things that don’t appear to broken.

He generally makes it work.

And forget that starting lineup. It’s just a starting guide and may look comical even by the time SEC play starts in mid-March.

But starting is relative in Mainieri’s annual master plan, too.

If a player has something to contribute — and most who get recruited by LSU do –— he’ll find a role for him. He’ll use the whole roster and find something everybody can do.

You don’t work it out without a few missteps along the way, but it’s generally worth it in the end.

But it all starts tonight when Notre Dame, a school Mainieri is still infatuated with after coaching there for 12 years, opens the weekend at The Box.

“Opening Day is always different,” Mainieri said. “No matter how much you prepare for it, when those bright lights are on and you’ve got 11,000 or 12,000 fans, it’s different from any other day of the year.

“Hopefully our team will be poised and go out there and play well.”

If not, he’ll start fiddling with it.