Tigers must prepare for tough Ole Miss squad on short week due to finals
Finals week is always a stressful time for any student at LSU, but imagine being a baseball player that has possibly the biggest series of the season starting on Friday.
Now imagine there’s no practice on Monday or Tuesday and with no midweek game, the first gametime pitching the batters will see won’t come until Friday night, where the lights at Alex Box are shined brightest.
That’s the tricky scenario for the team this week as the the Tigers prepare for an Ole Miss team that’s playing under very similar circumstances as the purple and gold.
With 11 games to play, LSU (29-16, 13-8) is firmly in the mix for the SEC title, tied for second place and just two games behind Arkansas in the West. One of those teams the Tigers are gridlocked with is Ole Miss, who comes to Baton Rouge this weekend for a three game series.
Coach Paul Mainieri said this last home stretch will define this season’s team but being winners of five of their last six ball games, the team is as prepared as can be for the tough homestretch. After the Ole Miss series, the Tigers go to first place Arkansas before coming home for the final regular season series against Auburn.
LSU and Arkansas have both won five of the seven SEC series but the biggest difference is LSU has swept one SEC opponent while Arkansas has swept three. Mainieri said he made the big mistake of driving home the importance of the Alabama series by stressing with his players the importance of the “S” word.
“It’s hard to sweep series in this league,” Mainieri said. “This Alabama team beat Arkansas 10-0 earlier this year, which you can’t do if you don’t have good players. I used the “S” word and I’ll never use it again because it’s so hard to do and it’s disrespectful to the opponent. It gives your players the impression they’re so much better than the other team.”
“We’re at that point in the season where there is nothing new to work on,” Mainieri said. “It’s just a matter of doing the things we’ve done well all year and trying to improve on them.
Also wedged in the schedule is midweek games against UNO and Louisiana Tech, two teams LSU has struggled to put away in recent years. Mainieri joked that he’s glad to have a break from a midweek game this week, considering how the team has fared as a whole this season.
With not as much practice time as a normal regular season week, Mainieri said players do still find ways to carve out time to get extra work in between studying for exams and the few practices the team does have.
“They’re baseball players so they’ll find the time to do the things they need to,” Mainieri said. “Some guys might take today off because it was a long weekend as well as a long drive and some guys have finals later today.”
Mainieri provided a few updates on some important injured players for the Tigers, starting with Cole Henry who is progressing well after experiencing arm soreness that forced him to miss the Alabama series over the weekend.
“He’s actually thrown two or three times and all indications are he’s doing much better,” Mainieri said. “Now does that mean he’s going to pitch this weekend, I don’t know yet.”
One player that had missed most of the season but had a successful return Saturday was infielder Gavin Dugas, who went 3-for-10 with two RBI in Sunday’s rubber match win over the Crimson Tide. Mainieri said Dugas is someone who will earn a ton of playing time over the next few weeks because of his aggressive nature at the plate.
“I thought Gavin gave our team a real jolt,” Mainieri said. “The first day [Saturday] he got a base hit up the middle and then on Sunday his two run RBI was huge. He’s not afraid.”
Mainieri referenced the best swing he saw Dugas take was in a 3-0 count where the freshman swung with all his might that caused him to actually fall down.
“I gave him the green light in that situation and that’s what I want to see in a 3-0 swing,” Mainieri said. “The next pitch is where he drove the two run single in so I just want to see guys with more aggressiveness and certainly Gavin is going to do that for us.”
Following Friday night’s loss to Alabama, Mainieri was frustrated with the team not because they lost but because he felt the hitters weren’t being as aggressive in two strike counts as they should’ve been.
“I just don’t like not see competing,” Mainieri said. “We took six called third strikes on Friday night and that distressed me quite a bit. Whether we get a hit or an out, you just want to see them out there competing and that wasn’t what I wanted to see so we shook things up a bit and I think it worked out.”
LSU decided to move recently inserted center fielder Zach Watson to the leadoff spot, right fielder Antoine Duplantis to the two hole, first baseman Cade Beloso to the cleanup three spot and shortstop Josh Smith to the four hole.
“I don’t even look at Beloso as a freshman anymore,” Mainieri said. “He’s had enough at bats and competed enough to be able to handle anything. I didn’t like moving Chris Reid to six and Daniel Cabrera seventh because they’re veteran guys but the truth of the matter is they haven’t done as much as earlier in the year. Listen if we have a good lineup all the way through that just makes us that much better.”