Expectations may be only thing Tigers can’t overcome
Published 8:58 pm Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Scooter Hobbs
It didn’t take much now, did it?
LSU’s baseball season, which was largely written off by the time the weather started getting warm, needed only one hot week and now suddenly the bandwagon takes on all comers and most of the fans’ eyes are back on Omaha … no matter that this time it could take anywhere from 3,729 miles to 4,382 miles to get there.
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That’d be the cumulative distance, via Portland, Oregon, to get to Corvallis, followed by a trip to Minneapolis or maybe Los Angeles before hitting that well-worn wagon trail from Alex Box Stadium to the College World Series.
This season had been written off as not the Tigers’ year. Too many injuries, too many holes.
But now that’s all forgotten?
And LSU didn’t even win the SEC Tournament, which the Tigers seem to do every year (although the way they made the final before losing to Ole Miss was probably as impressive as any of the trophies they’ve taken home from there).
So there’s been a quick reboot on the expectations — and nobody does baseball expectations quite like LSU does.
Omaha or bust.
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OK.
But let me see if I’ve get this straight now.
It was the mediocre regular season that was the fluky part?
Right?
The SEC Tournament run was when the true Tigers finally shook off a season of bad breaks and angry baseball gods to find their true stride.
And all is good. Their destiny awaits.
OK, run with it.
Whatever works.
LSU had shown some signs, but the season never really gained any traction. For the most part it was two steps forward, three steps back, maybe followed by a half-step forward.
And yet the Tigers did a world-class triple jump in the SEC Tournament, even if they didn’t quite stick the landing.
Maybe it was too good. Too much of a good thing.
Maybe LSU got to liking it and didn’t know when to stop with that entertaining run through all those weather-related obstacles in Hoover.
Certainly the Todd Peterson dupe was overkill. You know, the thing when he became an instant legend by lying to his coach about his hitting experience, then promptly tomahawked a two-run double off the left-field wall to ice a 12-inning victory in which he threw the last five innings.
You can’t coach that kind of foolishness. You’ve either got it or you don’t.
True, the Tigers weren’t sure they’d even be going to the NCAA Tournament when they arrived at the Hoover Met, which they basically own in mid-May.
But LSU had made its point — it was in the big tournament — by the time Peterson taunted his own dugout from second base.
And yet the Tigers kept winning.
The next thing you know the Tigers are not only in the NCAA Tournament, but they’re a No. 2 regional seed.
Great. Maybe. Sort of.
But as head coach Paul Mainieri pointed out, they likely were at the bottom end of No. 2 seeds.
On paper, it might have been better to settle for a No. 3 seed.
Officially, the selection committee seeds the 1-16 top regional seeds and plays the rest by ear. Usually it’s with an eye on regional regionals.
That certainly wasn’t a factor in shipping LSU halfway to Japan, so we can presume it was to match up the national No. 2 seed (Oregon State) with a softer touch as its region’s No. 2 seed.
Oregon State is No. 1 in most of the national polls, for which LSU has only itself to blame — the Tigers contributed to Florida tumbling from the No. 1 spot by run-rule eliminating the Gators in Hoover.
Of course, LSU doesn’t open the regional with the Beavers.
But conversely, in this theory you get a strong No. 3 seed, which LSU will face in San Diego State to open the tournament.
Not that seeding means much once the tournament starts.
Baseball, the game, doesn’t have much respect for seeding.
Somehow the Tigers have to keep that Hoover mojo going on a cross-country trip. They’ll probably have to pay the air charter an extra bag fee.
It’s not really in the numbers, though.
Little known fact: for all the caterwauling TV commentators did about “How’d you’d like these guys, red-hot, to show up as a No. 3 seed at your regional?” LSU hit .222 in the SEC Tournament — while going 4-2. The Tigers hit .180 in the last three games, all against what turned out to be national seeds — and won two of them.
That’s not important either. It’s the “timely” hitting, as Skip Bertman always preached, that wins games.
A bigger takeaway from the SEC Tournament was a pitching staff that suddenly looked like it could be trusted.
But even that wasn’t the most impressive.
In Hoover, Peterson was just the poster child. I can’t remember seeing a team that seemed to be having more fun than the Tigers did last week.
Now the pressure is on again.
Now people are really expecting this team to go to Omaha, against far taller odds they’ve normally overcome.
They need to just go to Corvallis and have a blast.
Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at shobbs@americanpress.com
LSU players line up to shake hands Sunday with Mississippi players after the Southeastern Conference tournament NCAA college baseball championship game in Hoover, Ala.
