Scooter Hobbs

For years the LSU baseball Twittersphere has railed about the Tigers occasionally overlooking and losing an odd midweek game.

This year LSU is unbeaten outside of the weekend and is 6-0 against in-state teams.

It hasn’t been all that social media cracked it up to be.

A 1-8 Southeastern Conference record — the worst start since 1969 — seems to be fueling the narrative.

The latest projections for the 64-team NCAA Tournament, for instance, do not even have six-time national champion LSU making the field.

“We need to start getting some victories in the SEC,” head coach Paul Mainieri suggested.

But he knows that the eyesore of that record won’t get tidied up overnight.

Probably not in one weekend.

But it has to start somewhere, even if it doesn’t get much easier this weekend when the Tigers (18-11) travel to Kentucky (19-7, 5-4 SEC) for the next SEC series.

“We need to find a way to get it done,” Mainieri said. “We’re going to have to go in there and take advantage of every opportunity we have against some very good arms.”

The SEC is full of power arms this season, and the Tigers haven’t fared particularly well against them.

In SEC games, the Tigers are hitting .201, last in the league.

“We have to take each game one at a time,” Mainieri said. “We’re better when we do it that way, instead of looking too far down the road.”

A good start would be to help get some runs for tonight’s starter, Landon Marceaux, who’s 2-3 despite a 2.01 ERA.

But in each of his three SEC starts, the Tigers have managed one run of support.

Kentucky’s .288 average is third in the league.

The Tigers will be an arm short this weekend after No. 2 starter Jaden Hill was lost for the season with an elbow injury last week during Vanderbilt’s sweep.

That moves A.J. Labas (1-0, 3.26) up to start Saturday’s game, but Mainieri said he will play the third game by ear.

He’ll likely choose between three promising freshmen, Garrett Edwards (1-2, 2.93) of Pitkin, Will Helmers (5-1, 3.46) and Blake Money (1-0, 4.91).

“After the first two games, we’ll see who’s available,” he said, adding that he wouldn’t hesitate to use one of the trio earlier to help win one of the first two games.

“I don’t want to name the (Sunday) starter and hold that person back if we have a chance to win a game earlier in the series … I hate to use a guy inferior to one of those three if we held them back strictly for Sunday.”

Edwards had somewhat of audition for the job in pitching the first two innings in Tuesday’s 14-1 win over McNeese State.

“He wants badly to be that third starter,” Mainieri said. “He texted me after that game. He said he believes he can give us five good innings. He has a lot of confidence.

“He could have continued but we shut him down to be ready this weekend. I was very pleased with him … got a couple of good outs against some good hitters.”

Pitching Matchups

5:30 p.m. Today

LSU, RH Landon Marceaux (2-3, 2.01 ERA, 40.1 IP, 11 BB, 47 SO) vs. UK, RH Cole Stupp (3-1, 1.91 ERA, 37.2 IP, 5 BB, 36 SO).

1 p.m. Saturday

LSU, RH AJ Labas (1-0, 3.26 ERA, 38.2 IP, 7 BB, 40 SO) vs. UK, RH Ryan Hagenow (1-1, 2.11 ERA, 21.1 IP, 11 BB, 25 SO).

Noon Sunday

LSU, TBA vs. UK, RH Zack Lee (2-2, 4.18 ERA, 28.0 IP, 7 BB, 24 SO).

Other SEC Series

Georgia at Vanderbilt (Thursday-Saturday)

Alabama at Texas A&M

Arkansas at Ole Miss

Mississippi State at Auburn

Florida at TennesseeLSU baseball