If you look extremely hard – maybe with a strong pair of binoculars – you can see LSU relief pitcher Gavin Guidry’s hands shake when he’s on the mound.

That nervousness is expected from a true freshman reliever, don’t you think? Especially when he’s the closer on the 19th LSU baseball team to make a trip to the College World Series, starting with Saturday’s 6 p.m. game vs. Tennessee.

But it isn’t a case of nerves. It’s just the opposite.

“My hands shake from all the adrenaline pumping through my body,” said Guidry, who was the 2022 Gatorade Louisiana High School Player of the Year for Lake Charles Barbe where he hit .422 as a shortstop and was 8-0 with a 0.16 ERA in 45 innings as a reliever. “It’s really fun. It’s cool pitching in front of 10,000 people with the game on the line.

“I love the noise. I never try to zone anything out when I’m on the mound. I fully embrace it when everybody’s standing up. When it’s two outs and two strikes in the ninth inning, I’ll just shake my head like `Let’s get it going. Get up. Get loud.’”

Guidry’s competitive gene plus a wicked slider (that he said looks like a curveball) combined with LSU’s sudden need for healthy pitching arms led Tigers’ head coach Jay Johnson to abandon his plan to train Guidry first as a shortstop and then as a reliever.

As the Tigers lost relievers Grant Taylor (in the preseason), Chase Shores and Garrett Edwards (both in early April) to season-ending injuries, the green light Johnson gave Guidry when the 6-2, 173-pound right-hander started preparing solely as a reliever has gotten progressively greener.

“He didn’t throw last fall (as a pitcher), so we were mindful of building him up and giving him the right amount of rest," Johnson said. "He’s versatile and can do a lot of different things and we’ll need him to do that.”

But not until next season with Guidry as apparent heir to take over at shortstop (as well as pitch) if current junior starter Jordan Thompson is taken in July’s major league draft.

Thompson, who also was a shortstop/pitcher in his prep playing days for La Mesa (Calif.) Helix High, said he noticed Guidry’s supreme confidence working with him at shortstop last fall and then when he first started pitching in February preseason camp.

“Coach Johnson asked me about the pitchers,” Thompson said, “and I told him whenever the game is on the line, he’s the guy you want in there. I know Gavin is going to go in there with full conviction and confidence. He's going to give you everything he's got all the time.”

Johnson learned about Guidry’s self-assurance the first time he met Guidry and his parents shortly after Johnson left Arizona and was named LSU’s head coach in June 2021.

“I flew into town on a Saturday and he was in my office literally Sunday morning,” Johnson said. “You could tell just by sitting with him and his family for a few minutes that this guy has some serious confidence and makeup.

“You have to have that `X’ factor piece to be a closer and he has it.”

Guidry credited Tigers’ pitching coach Wes Johnson, who was named Georgia’s head coach on June 6, for quickly whipping him into pitching shape.

“Whenever you aren't on the mound for a little while and try to get back into it,” Guidry said, “it shocks your body once you start moving down the (mound) slope. Wes did a really good job easing me into it. He's the most positive person I've ever met in my life.”

Guidry’s first big test as a closer came in game 2 at South Carolina on April 7 following LSU’s 13-5 series-opening loss the previous day.

Guidry entered with one out in the bottom of the eighth after Tigers’ second baseman Gavin Dugas tied the game 7-7 with a grand slam in the top of the eighth.

He was almost flawless the rest of way, retiring five of the six batters he faced. After LSU designated hitter Cade Beloso provided what stood as the game-winning RBI single in the top of the ninth, Guidry struck out three of four Gamecocks in the bottom of the ninth to preserve an 8-7 Tigers’ win.

A closer was born.

Guidry has pitched 23.2 innings this season in 19 appearances (one as a starter) with a 3-0 record, three saves and ERA of 3.42.

But in eight of those appearances as a closer, he’s thrown 11 innings, been credited with a win and all three saves, allowed six hits and one run and has an ERA of 0.82 with 15 strikeouts and one walk.

“He’s cut out for that,” LSU sophomore starting right-hander Thatcher Hurd said of Guidry as the closer. “His poise and confidence, that's so nails. He believes in himself, believes in his stuff. He's picked us all up.”

Starting with the final regular season game at Georgia, Guidry’s last five appearances have been as a closer including both NCAA Baton Rouge Regional wins over Oregon State and Sunday’s Super Regional championship clinching-win vs. Kentucky.

In 2.2 innings (his second longest stint of the season) against the Wildcats, he tied his season-best of four strikeouts.

With LSU clinging to a 5-3 lead in the bottom of the seventh inning, Guidry replaced reliever Riley Cooper with one out and a UK runner on first. Immediately, Guidry gave up a single and thought he might be removed when he saw lefty Nate Ackenhausen warming up in the Tigers’ bullpen.

But then he struck out UK left fielder Ryan Waldschmidt (swinging) and pinch-hitter Rueben Church (looking) both on 3-2 pitches to snuff the rally.

“I thought I was done at the end of the eighth," Guidry said. "But when I came in the dugout, Coach Wes and Coach Jay came up to me and they're like, `Hey, this is your game. We're rolling with you.’

“It was feeding me positivity, like full trust in me to go win the game. So that’s what I went out there and did.”

Guidry, who said he doesn’t feel pressure because “hitting under pressure is harder than pitching under pressure”, never lets the moment get to him.

It might briefly this weekend when competing for LSU in the College World Series, something he’s dreamed about since watching the Tigers’ last CWS team in 2017 lose the finals’ series to Florida.

“Watching them getting so close to winning national championship and falling short, that's where I wanted to be,” Guidry said. “I wanted to compete with LSU for a national championship. This is why I committed here when I was a junior in high school, and why I decided to come to school instead of getting drafted.

“It still doesn't really feel real. I don't think it'll feel real until we start pregame for our first game. I told Jordan earlier, `DUDE! We're going to OMAHA!’

“It's going to be really fun pitching in front 26,000 people this weekend.”