When an excellent season comes to a screeching halt without any warning, fans are always left searching for answers as to what went wrong.
They want someone or something they can point their fingers at as to why their team was sent home. And the closer they were to their goal, the more it hurts. That scapegoat makes it easier to deal with the disappointment of defeat.
LSU baseball fans are certainly no different.
In the wake of LSU’s 4-2 loss to North Carolina on Tuesday— a loss that eliminated the Tigers from the College World Series — I have seen the Tiger faithful blast senior outfielder Raph Rhymes, second guess coach Paul Mainieri’s decisions and even blame TD Ameritrade Park itself for the loss.
If I understand this right, the answer is to run the players out of town, fire Mainieri and burn the stadium to the ground.
Is LSU now closer to a championship?
Rhymes had a nightmarish end to his collegiate career in Omaha. Over the two games he went 0-for-9 at the plate and left a staggering 10 runners on base.
He was bad, and I doubt he would tell you otherwise, but to rip him like he was the only Tiger who didn’t hit these last two games is just not fair.
Baseball America’s National Collegiate Freshman of the Year Alex Bregman also left Omaha hitless in addition to making the error at shortstop that allowed UCLA to score the deciding run in the Tigers’ 2-1 defeat Sunday. Junior Christian Ibarra also joined them in the “0-for-Omaha” club.
To recap, the No. 3, No. 5 and No. 6 hitters in the Tigers’ lineup combined for exactly zero hits in the College World Series. Ryhmes’ failures were the most glaring, but it’s unfair to treat him like he was the only one.
On to the oldest fan overreaction in the book: the team lost, fire the coach.
Everyone jumped at the chance to second guess Mainieri for letting Rhymes swing away instead of bunting in the ninth inning against UCLA because he hit into a double play.
He hit into a lot of double plays this season, but it’s understandable that Mainieri didn’t want to take the bat out of Rhymes’ hands to set up Ibarra, whose last hit was May 31 against Jackson State, and junior Ty Ross, who finished the season with a .217 batting average.
Ryhmes finished the season third on the team with a .331 batting average and 46 RBIs. Mainieri chose to trust one of his best hitters and it didn’t work out. That’s baseball. All Mainieri can do as a coach is give his players the best chance to succeed; he can’t hit the ball for them.
And finally, a special section of the fan base is too delusional to even scapegoat someone on the team, but instead, chose to blame the Tigers’ offensive struggles on the fact that TD Ameritrade Park is just too big.
Baseball is the only of the four major sports where different playing fields have different dimensions, but last time I checked, both teams still swing for the same fences.
Blaming the ball park is a cop-out, and that’s why you won’t hear the players or coaches using that as an excuse.
“It’s a huge park, but everybody’s playing with it,” said senior first baseman Mason Katz after the UCLA loss Sunday. “Yeah, maybe we had a few more power hitters than UCLA, but everybody has to adjust.”
The Tigers never adjusted, and that is why they were sent back Baton Rouge earlier than they had hoped. The moral of the story is there isn’t always an obvious scapegoat to blame when things go wrong. LSU had a great season, but the bats went cold at the wrong time and they lost.
That’s baseball.
James Moran is a 20-year-old mass communication senior from Beacon, N.Y.
