Photo Credit

Scooter Hobbs

LSU baseball must have had an interesting ride home from Ole Miss Saturday night.

“We just won a series on the road against a top-10 team in a difficult place to play,” head coach Paul Mainieri said.

There was a disclaimer.

“But it doesn’t feel like it.”

Yes, blowing all of a 9-1 lead with two outs in the eighth, then losing 10-9 on the first pitch of the bottom of the ninth can take the shine off what could have been a wonderful weekend after the Tigers took the first two games against the No. 10 Rebels.

It kind of sums up the season right now for LSU (24-15, 6-12 SEC).

“We’re that close,” Mainieri bemoaned Monday. “It’s been a struggle all year.”

He cited just the two most glaring examples other than that Mother of all Meltdowns in Oxford — the Tigers were one pitch from winning the middle game at Tennessee, two outs from taking the home series against South Carolina.

“Three games,” he said. “Just three games, how different everything would look.

“We’d be 9-9 (in the SEC) right now, we’ve played the No. 1 most difficult schedule in the country. We’d be 27-12, probably ranked 10-15 in the country our RPI would probably be 18 … with four weeks left in the regular season we’d be in perfect situation to make our final push.”

Instead the Tigers, whose six SEC series have included five weekends against Top 10 teams, are fighting for their postseason lives — with No. 1 ranked Arkansas visiting this weekend it will be six out of seven.

RPI is not bad, No. 24 in the latest rankings, which also credits the Tigers with the nation’s toughest schedule.

“If we can just take care of business these last four weeks,” Mainieri said, “we can put ourselves is position to be in postseason and then make our run.”

But if this season has taught him nothing else, it’s that you don’t assume anything — one game at a time or not.

He tells his team every day to look at it one game at a time, beginning with tonight’s game against Grambling.

‘That’s the only way you can do it, otherwise it seems like such a daunting task,” he said.

But Mainieri admitted he looks at the SEC standings every day, particularly

If LSU hopes to make the NCAA tournament, the Tigers had best at least be one of the 12 teams reaching the SEC tournament first.

Currently they’d be the No. 11 seed, one game ahead of Missouri and Texas A&M and three games ahead of Auburn.

“The goal every year is to make the SEC tournament,” Mainieri said. “Everybody chuckles when I say that, but this year shows you can’t take anything for granted.”

The Tigers once again will cobble together a pitching rotation for tonight’s game against Grambling. Usual midweek starter Will Hellmers is unavailable because he has a economics final exam scheduled.

NOTES: First baseman Tre’ Morgan was named the SEC’s freshman of the week after going 8-for-14 with three RBI, four runs scored, one stolen base and a .625 on-base percentage in the Ole Miss series.LSU baseball