Paul Mainieri knows Baton Rouge isn’t happy.

He doesn’t need to tap into social media to know LSU fans are upset.

Because at the end of his 13th season as LSU’s head baseball coach, he feels the same way after the Tigers were swept last weekend in their home Super Regional by Florida State and its retiring 75-year-old coach Mike Martin.

“I’ve coached eight Super Regionals here at LSU, we’ve won five of them,” Mainieri said at his end of the season press conference on Thursday. “The three that we’ve lost it almost felt like the team that beat us was a team of destiny, like it was just their year and nobody wasn’t going to stop them.

“Mike in his swan song, his kids found a way to win. The other two times, Coastal Carolina and Stoney Brook, the greatest teams they’ve ever had in the history of their programs, veteran teams.”

As hard as the last three days at the end of every season are for Mainieri, conducting exit interviews with returnees and bidding emotional farewells to departing players, he already knows it’s time to move on.

He realizes while the Tigers finished 40-26 and shocked some folks when they rallied to host a Super Regional, LSU didn’t come close in the 2019 season to playing consistent, smart baseball that has become the Tigers’ standard of excellence.

“The cycle begins again, you start thinking about next year, what we’ve got to do to make ourselves the best team possible,” Mainieri said. “You can’t sit around feel sorry for yourself and pout. Even though we wish we were in Omaha playing for a national championship, you’ve got to shake it off and go forward.”

And so he is. During Mainieri’s hour long press conference, he:

· Revealed three players – catcher Brock Mathis and pitchers Will Ripoli and Riggs Threadgill – won’t be returning next season. He added he doesn’t anticipate any changes to his coaching staff.

· Said five of the six Tigers taken in the major league draft will sign, but he expects starting catcher Saul Garza to return. Garza, who’ll be a junior, was named MVP of the Baton Rouge Regional and finished batting .303 after dipping to .188 at one point.

· Confirmed 12 of LSU’s 14 returning pitchers off the 2019 injury-riddled staff are either rehabbing from surgeries or resting and will not play in collegiate summer leagues.

The only pitchers playing summer ball are rising sophomores Chase Costello and Rye Gunter. The Tigers have nine returning position players in summer leagues including six in Cade Cod, a league considered to be stocked with best college talent.

· Stressed LSU “doesn’t have a chance to be a great team next year unless Daniel Cabrera is the straw that stirs the drink, that he steps forward and has a phenomenal season.”

Cabrera, a rising junior, saw his batting average fall to .284 this past season after he hit .315 as a freshman in 2018. Mainieri said Cabrera never looked comfortable at the plate after a thumb injury sidelined him for two weeks.

“I think Daniel and I are very much in agreement that his season was ok, but not great, not what we expected,” Mainieri said of Cabrera, who will play in Cape Cod this summer with the Harwich (Mass.) Mariners. “He’s determined to do better next year.

“He wasn’t terrible this season. Look at his numbers (50 RBI, tied for team home run lead with 12). Most kids would die for those numbers. But Daniel holds himself to a different standard and so do I.”

Also, Mainieri said Cabrera’s fielding has improved so much he’s moving him next season from left field to right field.

· Explained he’s leaning to leaving rising junior Devin Fontenot in a relief role rather than a starting pitcher. Fontenot’s 6.1 innings allowing just two hits, striking out 11 and finally giving up the winning run in the 12th inning of Florida State’ 6-4 Super Regional title clinching win Sunday will be remembered as one of LSU’s greatest NCAA tourney pitching performances ever.

“I can’t believe how great he was that night,” Mainieri said. “It’s a shame we didn’t win the game. He put the team on his shoulders.

“He’s too valuable in that role and he’s a two-pitch guy who throws his fastball 90 percent of the time. You need three pitches to be a starter. And I think we’ll have other candidates who can start.”

· Emphasized signing infielders is LSU’s recruiting priority. The loss of three starting infielders – graduating seniors Brandt Broussard and Chris Reid, as well New York Yankees draft choice Josh Smith – as well as the draft day flip of LSU signee shortstop Christian Cairo to the Cleveland Indians – has made recruiting infielders a must.

LSU returns five infielders in 2020 including starters Cade Beloso at first base and Hal Hughes at third base. Returning reserves Drew Bianco, Gavin Dugas and C.J. Willis, who all got at least 10 starts this season and batted .212 or less, need to improve dramatically.

“We’re scouring the country to find some guys to play the infield,” said Mainieri, who will look for junior college standouts who wait until after the draft to see what major college programs specifically need in recruiting. “(Recruiting coordinator) Nolan Cain is using all of his contacts. We’ve identified some people we hope to convince to come to school here.”

· Vowed that he and pitching coach Alan Dunn are analyzing everything in determining the team’s outbreak of pitching injuries.

“For the (first) six years Alan Dunn as pitching coach, we hardly had an injury until Eric Walker at the end of 2017 in Omaha (at the College World Series),” Mainieri said. “He hasn’t done anything different with the program the last two years, but we’ve had a barrage of injuries.

“I can tell you several of these injuries were incurred by these young men in high school. They came here with those injuries. Nick Storz was hurt before he even got here. Easton McMurray was hurt before he even got here. What can you do when they arrive hurt?

“It’s admirable thing that we didn’t give up on those boys. We sign them to a scholarship, they get hurt, but we still honor the scholarship and bring them to LSU and let our doctors and trainers try to rehabilitate them.

“Some have worked out, some have taken long to recover.”

· Agreed hitting is an area where LSU needs improvement. The Tigers hit just .273, its lowest batting average since Mainieri’s first season as coach in 2007. While LSU’s home runs increased from 48 last season to 64 this year, Tigers’ batters went from 408 strikeouts a year ago to 485 in 2019.

“It was our approach at the plate, the ability to handle off-speed pitches,” Mainieri said. “Curveballs and change-ups seem to have given us a lot of trouble. On the approach, we need with two strikes to be able to hit to the opposite field more instead of swinging for the fences.”