With only two weekends of nonconference play remaining for the No. 9 LSU baseball squad, the Tigers’ coaching staff is making a change to the rotation before the team’s weekend series against Brown and Nicholls State.
Senior left-hander Brent Bonvillain and sophomore southpaw Cody Glenn have been battling for the No. 3 rotation slot and Sunday start against Nicholls State. LSU coach Paul Mainieri chose the younger lefty to fill the role after Glenn threw seven innings of shutout ball against Louisiana-Lafayette on the road Tuesday night.
“It was a remarkable performance by him,” Mainieri said. “Not just that he pitched seven innings of shutout baseball on three hits, he did it on 69 pitches. It was a cool evening, so he hardly even worked up a sweat. I would really like to … turn him around and start him on Sunday of this coming weekend.”
Bonvillain will be moved to the bullpen during the weekend series after struggling late in his previous start against Brigham Young University. Mainieri also wants to avoid pitching the senior against the school from which he transferred.
“Brent transferred here from Nicholls State, and it is a personal philosophy of mine not to pitch someone against the school they transferred from,” Mainieri said. “I think that would become the headline of the game, and I don’t want to give it that much attention. I don’t want to rekindle those thoughts.”
When the Tigers welcome Brown today and Saturday, they will be seeing a squad that hasn’t touched a diamond in an official game in 2013. The Bears had a poor 2012 campaign, going 9-35.
LSU senior first baseman Mason Katz doesn’t intend to take them lightly, though.
“We don’t try to play different based on the other team, we just play within our own capabilities,” he said. “On the weekend, we ride our two big horses on the mound and try to score runs as quickly as possible to bring the other team’s morale down. That is how we’re built, and we play to our strengths.”
Nicholls State arrives in Baton Rouge with a little more success. The Colonels are 6-3 heading into the weekend series, as they’ve won three of four games after taking a series against Towson and squeaking out a victory versus Tulane.
The Colonels will have to endure a Tiger offense that has heated up as of late, as LSU has scored 24 runs in the past two games.
“Everybody is just starting to settle in,” said senior left fielder Raph Rhymes. “Everybody is starting to get some confidence, and I think the numbers we’ve put up show the kind of lineup we can be.”
“We don’t try to play different based on the other team, we just play within our own capabilities.”
