For five innings, coach Paul Mainieri felt his team was playing some of its best baseball of the season. The Tigers were leading a patient Florida State ball club 4-0 without surrendering a hit.

Then the game started to unravel, leaving LSU with an uphill climb to extend its season.

Whether it was the 10 walks or the eight batters the Tigers left on base on, LSU shortstop Josh Smith and pitcher Todd Peterson wanted to make one thing clear, this team is not feeling sorry for itself and it certainly isn't giving up.

"We're going to have to win the first one before we can win the second one," Smith said. "It's been done here before and not too many guys are down on themselves right now because we have another chance to play a game tomorrow."

"It's baseball and that stuff happens," Peterson said of the blown 4-0 lead. "I've had my fair share of those and it's part of it. You have to live with it and move on from there."

The missed opportunities on offense, beginning with Saul Garza missing second base with no outs in the fourth inning, can be chalked up to a fluke play Mainieri said.

The sophomore catcher has been hampered with a foot injury as of late and while Mainieri didn't use it as an excuse, he commended his catcher for playing through the pain.

"We've played a whole season and it's the first time we've had a runner miss the base," Mainieri said. "It's basic fundamentals of the game but what people don't know is about Saul's foot injury. So he's trying to run and do the best for his team and somehow he misstepped and missed the base."

Zach Watson also had a timely out in the fifth, being caught in between second and third on a ball he thought was going home to try and save a run. Mainieri said Watson and all the base runners are taught to make a move to third if they see or think a ball is to be thrown to homeplate to save a run.

"Watson did the right thing there," Smith said. "If there's going to be a play at the plate, he's supposed to do what he did but it was just kind of unlucky for us but we have to correct those little things."

Mainieri went on to reveal that starting pitcher Cole Henry was pulled from the game due to arm soreness, which started to crop up towards the end of the first inning. After Henry's 30 pitch second inning, Mainieri walked over to Henry to ask how he was feeling when the freshman stated that his arm was feeling sore.

"When he came off I asked him how he felt and he told me his arm was bothering him," Mainieri said. "He pointed to his arm and I'm not going to take anymore chances with the kid. There was no decision to be made, he had to come out of the game."

As for the abundance of walks, Peterson said the staff as a whole is not down on themselves.

With Landon Marceaux and Eric Walker yet to pitch, Peterson feels solid outings from those two combined with a revitalized bullpen should keep LSU in the swing of things the rest of the weekend.

"We got great arms," Peterson said. "The guys that went out there today are all going to be better. From every single aspect, all of us believe in every single guy on this staff and we know that we're going to make the pitches."

Despite having to burn Peterson, who threw 70 pitches in 4.1 innings, Mainieri said the other bullpen guys including Trent Vietmeier, Zack Hess and Devin Fontenot would be available for Sunday's game and are "all eager to pitch." Mainieri commended Peterson for his performance, who he said, probably saved LSU from having to burn extra arms thanks to his extended outing.

"Todd kept it in tact for us because of the extent of his outing," Mainieri said. "Thank goodness he did because it saved our bullpen more than it would've been if we had to pull him after an inning or two."

Game two is set to start at 5 p.m. on Sunday evening with Marceaux on the mound.

Facing adversity is nothing new for this Tiger team and Mainieri feels his players will be ready come first pitch Sunday, telling the team to not think about winning two games, instead just to focus on the one game directly ahead.

"We don't face more adversity than we do right now," Mainieri said. "We need to win or the season's over. I just talked to the team and said this is not time to feel sorry for yourselves. We have to come out tomorrow and play with the same energy and enthusiasm and just do a little bit more."