LSU baseball team looks to bounce back

Published 7:00 pm Tuesday, February 20, 2018

When LSU’s long, sordid weekend was over with —  just after a good scolding from head coach Paul Mainieri was over with — senior Beau Jordan called the team together for his own chit-chat.

The Tigers had just dropped two of three to Notre Dame in alarming fashion.

Jordan’s message?

“I just told everybody that LSU has a legacy to uphold,” Jordan said, “Weekends like this, that’s not LSU legacy.”

The Tigers certainly didn’t look like the defending College World Series runners-up in giving up 27 runs in three games and needing to rally from six runs down for the only win, 7-6, in Friday.’s opener. They followed it with 10-5 and 11-3 losses to an Irish team that had only one outdoor practice before coming to Baton Rouge.

  “I’ve been a part of three really good teams,”the Barbe grad said, “and this weekend … it wasn’t fun.”

Never mind that Jordan was one of the few bright spots, going 4-for-8 with two home runs, two doubles and four walks while scoring four runs over the weekend.

“It doesn’t matter when you lose,” he said.

Mainieri didn’t hide his concern, but added he wasn’t totally shocked.

He almost laughed he asked what his biggest concern was.

“I’m not sure there is a main concern,”he said. “There’s a lot of concerns. We’ve got a lot of work to do.

“We obviously have a lot of work to do. I knew going into the season that it was going to be a long road. We were going to have to make some strides throughout the year. It became very obvious this weekend there are a lot of areas we need to get better at.”

A start would be on the mound, however, mostly the three starters who ended the weekend with a 10.50 ERA while none lasted more than four innings. The staff as a whole walked 16 batters and hit nine more. 

“It’s not something that caught me totally off guard because that’s the way it’s been in practice,” Mainieri said. “We’ve just given up way too many free passes … They (Notre Dame) didn’t need it, because they certainly played great, but we gave them an awful lot of free gifts.

“We have to throw the ball over the plate. There’s no defense for a base on balls. They’ll get better.”

It was the first time since 1999 that the Tigers lost a season-opening series. And the 27 runs were the most LSU has allowed in its first three games since 1952.

“My main job right now with these kids is to make sure they keep their confidence up,” Mainieri said. “We got our nose bloodied.”

It won’t get much easier.

LSU plays UNO on Wednesday — a team coached by former star Blake Dean that beat the Tigers twice last season — before a weekend home series against the Texas Longhorns. Texas opened its season by taking two of three from UL-Lafayette.