What a relief! Tigers are OMAHA BOUND after winning the Super Regional
There were times this baseball season, especially in SEC play, when there was an overdose of pessimism about LSU’s relief pitching.
After LSU relievers blew a nine-run lead in a 10-inning loss to Mississippi State to lose an SEC series with a week left in the regular season, the most common assessment from the average Tigers’ fan was blunt.
“We don’t have the relievers to get to Omaha.”
Yet in five NCAA tournament games over the last two weekends, LSU’s relievers have battled and escaped the toughest situations. And with a trip to Omaha and the College World Series on the line Sunday in Alex Box Stadium, the Tigers’ relief pitching did something they hadn’t done all season vs. SEC competition.
Relievers Riley Cooper and Gavin Guidry shutout Kentucky in the last 5.2 innings – the longest scoreless streak by Tigers’ relievers this season against SEC foes – in an 8-3 victory to win the Super Regional and capture their 19th College World Series appearance.
"The Mississippi State Sunday game, that was tough," said LSU second-year coach Jay Johnson, who lost his three best relievers with season-ending injuries for most of the season. "Since that game, I'd say it (relief pitching) has been the strength of this team. I never doubted the talent. I think we just needed to help them get lined up a little bit better mentally."
Cooper, who entered the game with one out the UK fourth with LSU (48-15) clinging to a 5-3 lead and pitched three innings and Guidry who threw 2.2 innings, got the Tigers to the finish line unscathed.
In a combined 95 pitches to 23 batters, Cooper and Guidry teamed to allow just three hits and six base runners (all left stranded) while striking out six and walking one.
"If we had a crutch all year, it would be the bullpen,," said Cooper, who made his 52nd appearance in the last two seasons since he came to LSU with then-Arizona coach Johnson after the Wildcats were eliminated in two games in the 2021 College World Series. "It was good to show that's not our crutch and that we can hold our own."
Guidry finished off UK (40-20) in the bottom of ninth after LSU broke a five-inning scoreless streak by scoring three runs in the top of the ninth. Center fielder Dylan Crews’ two-RBI double in the final home at-bat of his memorable three-year career keyed the rally.
"There was a lot of emotions and a lot of things going on in that situation," Crews said. "I controlled my breathing. I walked four times previously, so I was just trying to get something good to hit and not trying to expand. I was able to do that."
Crews' hit was LSU's ninth and final hit of the night. While the Tigers had just three extra base hits after banging 22 in four previous NCAA tourney games, all nine players in LSU's batting order got a hit each.
It was something that didn't go unnoticed by Kentucky seventh-year head coach Nick Mingione.
"That's a really long lineup," Mingione said. "Those guys at the bottom (of the batting order) -- (Brayden) Jobert, (Jordan) Thompson and (Josh) Pearson -- have done really well for them. They're a super well-rounded team. And there aren't many weaknesses."
LSU started unbeaten Ty Floyd on the mound, who gave up five runs and six hits in 4.2 innings in an April start vs. UK.
Floyd, who has lasted five or more innings in six of his 11 SEC starts this season, went 3.1 innings this time. He allowed seven hits and three runs (all solo homers) and had five strikeouts and a walk.
The Wildcats had three hits off Floyd in the bottom of the first, starting with center fielder Jackson Gray’s leadoff solo homer for a 1-0 UK lead.
It was the ninth homer allowed by Floyd in the first two innings this season.
But as he has done in most of those instances, he shut down the rally before it started. He retired the last two batters including an inning-ending strikeout of UK left fielder Ryan Waldschmidt.
UK’s Austin Strickland, one of the team’s best relievers, got his third start of the season and looked somewhat nervous.
In the first two innings, he allowed six LSU base runners via two hits, two walks, a hit batsman and a fielders’ choice game-tying RBI grounder by Crews at 1-1 in the top of the second.
The Tigers smoked some hard-hit grounders. But brilliant back-to-back individual fielding plays in the LSU second by UK second baseman Emilien Petre and shortstop Grant Smith turned apparent hits by Crews and third baseman Tommy White into outs including one on a force play at second.
Strickland finally caved in the top of the third. Tigers’ first baseman Tre’ Morgan led off with a double off the left field wall and catcher Hayden Travinski singled. It set the stage for designated hitter Cade Beloso rocketing an 0-2 pitch over the right-center field wall for a three-run homer to boost the Tigers’ advantage to 4-1.
"It was an 0-2 heater right down the middle," Belsoso said. "That guy (Strickland) was doing a really good job of sinking and running the ball away from lefties. I finally found one I could stay behind and put a good swing on. I don't know what happened after that. Once I saw the ball go over the fence, I kind of just blacked out."
Strickland managed to get a couple of outs before issuing consecutive walks to LSU shortstop Jordan Thompson and left fielder Josh Pearson.
That led to Mingione to insert reliever Mason Moore, who gave up no runs in 10 innings while recording two wins in last weekend’s Lexington Regional.
Moore walked Crews on a 3-2 count to load the bases before then White beat out a choppy grounder to third base for an RBI single to increase the LSU cushion to 5-1. Morgan grounded out to leave three runners stranded concluding the four-run, four-hit rally.
UK cut the lead to 5-2 in the bottom of third on catcher Devin Burkes’ one-out solo homer to centerfield. The Wildcats left two runners on base when Floyd froze designated hitter Chase Stanke with a third strike pitch for the third out.
Kentucky chipped another run off LSU’s lead at 5-3 on right fielder Nolan McCarthy’s solo homer to lead off the bottom of the fourth. Then after retiring UK’s Smith on a fly ball, Floyd’s 82-pitch day was done. Tigers’ reliever Cooper entered and retired two of the last three batters.
Cooper, blanked UK in the fifth and six innings. He retired 10 of the 14 batters he faced, exiting with one out in the seventh after Pitre singled.
LSU freshman reliever Guidry, usually the Tigers’ closer, dug the hole deeper allowing a single by UK first baseman Hunter Gilliam followed by Pitre stealing third base.
But the crafty righty recorded strikeouts of Waldschmidt and designated hitter Reuben Church, both on 3-2 pitches, with Waldschmidt swinging and Church looking at a curveball.
Darren Williams, one of UK’s most experienced relievers, replaced Moore to start the top of the eighth after Moore allowed just two hits and no runs in 4.1 innings.
Williams walked two of the first three batters he faced. Only a diving full extension third out catch by UK’s McCarthy of what would have been a Beloso RBI single kept LSU from scoring a needed insurance run.
But the Tigers got those in the ninth, starting the party that will continue this weekend in Omaha where Johnson will make his third appearance. It's also LSU's first trip to the CWS since 2017 when the Tigers were swept in two games by Florida in the best two of three games national championship series.
And it's a return to where Johnson's LSU odyssey started. Shortly after Arizona was eliminated by Stanford in the 2021 CWS, he was approached by Tigers' athletic director Scott Woodward about filling the vacancy of retired head coach Paul Mainieri.
For someone who grew up a fan of Skip Bertman's five LSU national championship teams -- "I'm 12 years old, I had a LSU baseball hat on in Northern California and watching the purple jerseys run around Omaha all the time," Johnson said, -- there was no way Johnson could turn down Woodward's offer.
And now?
"To get to coach this team in the College World Series, I've had a hard time to put that into words, but it's pretty special," Johnson said. "They've earned the right to go play for a national championship, and that's what we intend on going and going for it.
"I will not promise we'll win it, but everything will be invested by everybody to go do that."