The No. 1 LSU baseball team will look to heat up a cooled-down offense Friday against Jackson State
The Tigers only averaged three runs in five games on its way to winning the Southeastern Conference Tournament in Hoover, Ala. on May 26.
At the Hoover Metropolitan Stadium, the power alleys extended 375 feet, while the center field fence stood at 405 feet. But senior first baseman Mason Katz said the park felt larger than the listed footage.
“The park played much bigger than 405,” Katz said. “We hit balls that just sat up out there.”
LSU managed to take home the title even with a sputtering offense and one of their normal starters out due to injury. Junior second bagger JaCoby Jones was out with an undisclosed wrist injury after an apartment incident.
Jones will be back for the regional however, and said the layoff will actually help his game.
“The time off actually helped, I think.” Jones said. “I feel fresh — it’s like the start of a new season to me.”
Jones will inject some much-needed power into the second half of LSU’s lineup, whose 3-4-5-6 hitters sport on-base percentages of more than .400.
“All I can hope is that there are people on base when I get up there,” Jones said. “Hopefully I can drive in some runs and get us going.”
LSU could bring back another injured starter, as coach Paul Mainieri said freshman outfielder Mark Laird has made “significant” progress from the ankle injury he suffered during batting practice before the tournament semi-final against Arkansas.
“[Laird] will take batting practice [Thursday] and he might be able to make the active roster for this weekend.”
Even if Laird isn’t able to return, sophomore outfielder Jared Foster proved more than capable of manning the right -field position on the SEC Tournament championship game against Vanderbilt.
During the bottom of the seventh inning, Foster uncorked a rocket from right field to junior catcher Ty Ross to stop Vandy’s go-ahead run.
Junior right-hander Ryan Eades will receive the start Friday and will be tasked with taking on a Jackson State lineup which lacks top-notch power, but possesses plenty of speed on the base paths
Jackson State only hit 12 home runs this year, but managed to steal 125 bases with six players stealing 10 bases or more.
But Mainieri said the Tigers have a plan to limit the effectiveness of Jackson State’s speedy runners.
“You can’t steal first base,” Mainieri said. “We’ll try to get out to an early lead so we can discourage them from being too aggressive on the base paths.”
Katz said he was working on some things with Eades to control the runners who do make it to first.
Jackson State’s table setter — junior outfielder Charles Tilley — hit .344 on the season, while stealing 25 bases out of 30 attempts.
The Blue Bengals are hitting .286 against right-handed pitchers on the season, compared to just .275 against left-handed pitchers.
Sophomore right-hander Alexander Juday is Jackson State’s presumed starter, according to Mainieri
“They haven’t released the rotation yet, but [Juday] became their big guy late in the season,” Mainieri said. “We think that’s who we will see and we have a pretty good handle on the type of pitcher he is.”
Mainieri said LSU hasn’t done anything different to prepare for the Regional, despite having a few players who will be tasting postseason play for the first time.
“We just take it one game at a time,” Mainieri said. “We haven’t talked about how many games we might have left. Our seniors would be very disappointed if we only played two more games, I can tell you that.”
