OMAHA, Neb. — For most of the second half of the regular season, the LSU baseball lineup, if not written in hard granite, wasn’t much temptation for mystery lovers either.

Save for an occasional minor tweK, you could pretty well predict it in advance.

Game in, game out, almost monotonous.

Now? It’s almost become a parlor game among the pregame tailgaters trying to figure out how many left turns head coach Jay Johnson is going to scribble into the lineup card next.

The curious among them anxiously await the next starting lineup, jostling and fighting over it like those newspaper extras — read all about it! — marking the end of world wars.

Johnson has almost become the Oz behind the baseball curtain, furiously pulling on levers and pushing handles this way and that.

Except that it’s not a mirage.

And so far, Johnson has had an uncanny knack for pushing the right postseason buttons.

It’s constant fiddling and adjusting here and there. Unlike the mighty Oz, it’s all very real and mostly successful.

If he was in a casino, they might be alerting the pit boss — Floor!

There could well be tailgate pools with cash money riding on who and what order Johnson fills out next.

In LSU’s eight games since the postseason began with the SEC tournament, no Tiger has hit in the same spot for all eight.

Not even Derek Curiel, the freshman leftfielder who made freshman all-American by defining what you want in your leadoff hitter. Sees a lot of pitches. Always seems to get on base by hook or crook — the freshman’s college career was 44 games old before he went a game without reaching.

So it was a knock-me-over-with-a-feather shocker when LSU opened the super-regional against West Virginia with Curiel hitting down in the 7 hole.

Not only that, but Josh Pearson started in rightfield in place of Jake Brown. No huge shocker there, but he also took over the leadoff spot.

Curiel didn’t seem to mind the seven hole. He hit a 3-run homer that gave LSU the lead for good and finished 3-for-3 with three runs and five RBIs.

Oh, and Pearson at the leadoff spot hit one of the Tigers’ two grand slams in a 16-9 victory.

It looked like Johnson had stumbled onto something.

So, of course, Curiel was back at the top of the order the next day, and was soon up to leadoff-type mischief with a hit and two walks to score three times.

Pearson was back on the bench, with Brown taking over the cleanup spot again. He promptly went 3-for-4 with four RBIs, two on a home run that might still be in orbit if it hadn’t hit the batters’ eye in dead-center field.

And then … sometimes it’s knowing (or, let’s be honest, guessing) what button not to push.

For instance, when LSU loaded the bases shortly after West Virginia cut the lead to 6-4 in the clincher Monday night, Johnson was ready to pinch-hit for No. 9 hitter Chris Stanfield in the crucial moment.

“But I just had a good feeling,” Johnson said of why he gace Stanfield a reprieve. “Like, he’s hit these kind of guys before.”

Stanfield delivered a 2-run single — of course he did — that ignited the six-run inning that put the Tigers on the road to Omaha.

It was just the latest in a list that goes back, back, back since postseason began.

Johnson didn’t really answer the question of what his thinking is when fiddling before filling out a lineup card.

But with a deep lineup, he has lots of options and likes to explore them all.

Johnson doesn’t have to worry about bruising any feelings or egos.

He tries to let players know if they’re moving drastically in the order for the next game, but not always.

When Jared Jones was mired in a slump, for instance, the coach had a long talk with him before sliding him well down the order. It was, “This is what I’m thinking. This is why. What are your thoughts?”

Johnson has the final word, of course. This isn’t Little League. Too much is at stake, too many people care.

Still, sometimes sentiment can come into play.

In Monday’s last game before Omaha, for instance, it was Brown who suggested that Pearson pinch hit for him in the ninth inning.

The game was no longer on the line. Brown has fairly well taken the rightfield job away from Pearson but still looks up to the fifth-year selfless senior, who had far more playing time on the 2023 national championship team.

When Brown took a seat, it gave the Alex Box Stadium crowd a chance to give Pearson a final, appreciative send-off.

All involved were still chuckling about it the next day.

“I don’t know,” Brown said, “if I’ve ever seen anyone have a three-pitch strike out and get standing ovation.”

Maybe. But it was still the right button to push.

Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics for the Lake Charles American Press. You can contact him at shobbs@americanpress.com