When asked if Sunday was his lowest point of the season, LSU freshman pitcher Jake Godfrey shrugged his shoulders and sighed.
“If you can’t get out of two innings, then yeah, it’s pretty low,” Godfrey said.
Godfrey, the Tigers’ Sunday starter, struggled in each of his first six outings but always found a way out of the self-inflicted jams.
But against a stingy Kentucky club, Godfrey couldn’t work his magic.
The freshman right-hander lasted 1 2/3 innings, the shortest outing for any LSU starter this season, and gave up four runs on six hits before being yanked with one out to go in the second.
Godfrey kept his 5-0 record, but his most recent Sunday outing was anything but perfect.
“I just felt like I didn’t have life,” Godfrey said. “I was kind of dead from the start, and they got to me early.”
It’s been an up-and-down start to life in the college ranks for Godfrey, one of the stars of LSU coach Paul Mainieri’s highly-touted 2015 freshman class.
After lasting just 3 2/3 innings in his debut against Kansas on Feb. 15, Godfrey improved in each of his next three starts until pitching a career-best seven innings in a win against Nebraska on March 8.
But Godfrey’s outings have become shorter in each of his last three appearances, culminating in Sunday’s season-worst performance.
Godfrey said he felt “a little dead-armed” going into Sunday’s game but didn’t use that as an excuse for his subpar performance. Though LSU sophomore pitcher Parker Bugg couldn’t tell if his freshman teammate looked fatigued, he noticed something was off with the normally hard-throwing rookie.
“The only thing I noticed was his velocity was down,” Bugg said. “He was throwing 89, 90 [mph] when normally in the first inning it’s 92, 93. That’s the only thing I noticed. Sometimes you just don’t have your best stuff.”
Godfrey’s stuff was on point in the first inning. He retired three of the first four Wildcats he faced, including a strikeout against sophomore infielder JaVon Shelby, and looked poised to continue the progression he had shown throughout this season.
But everything fell apart in the second.
He allowed a leadoff home run to Kentucky junior outfielder Dorian Hairston, gave up three consecutive singles to load the bases and walked in a run before the first out. Three of those hits, including Hairston’s homer, came on first pitches.
He allowed another score on a sacrifice fly and gave up one more on the fifth hit of the inning before Mainieri pulled him with two runners still on.
After hoping Godfrey would find his groove on the mound like he habitually has, Mainieri had seen enough.
“He threw a lot of first-pitch strikes, and they were swinging at first-pitch strikes,” Mainieri said. “Then he couldn’t get his curveball over. I don’t think in the time he was in the game he threw one curveball for a strike.”
With ineffective secondary pitches against Kentucky, Mainieri said Godfrey didn’t have much of a chance.
“He just couldn’t command his breaking pitch,” Mainieri said. “In this league, if you don’t have other pitches to be able to throw besides your fastball, then you’re going to have a tough time.”
Entering Sunday’s game, Godfrey’s ERA stood at a solid 2.25, the 14th-best in the Southeastern Conference and second-best for a true freshman behind teammate Alex Lange. But after giving up four earned runs in not even two innings of work against Kentucky, Godfrey’s ERA rose to 3.21, dropping him to 29th in the conference.
Through his first six starts, opponents were batting .243 against Godfrey. But that mark jumped 30 percentage points to .273 after Godfrey gave up hits to half of the batters he faced (6-of-12).
But every pitcher goes through a rough day, and Godfrey is no different, said Bugg.
“That’s just kind of how baseball goes — sometimes you’re going to be able to get out of a jam, and sometimes not,” Bugg said. “But [Godfrey] is young and enthusiastic. He’s going to put this behind him and bounce back great against [Alabama]. He’ll be fine.”
Godfrey and the Tigers have a short week before beginning their next SEC series at Alabama, which starts Thursday instead of the traditional Friday. Because of the early schedule, Godfrey likely will get the starting nod Saturday for the second time in three weeks.
He said he’s glad he doesn’t have to wait an entire week to erase the memory of his last start.
“The best thing I can take away from it is I’m going to be a lot more fresh coming to next weekend,” Godfrey said. “I’m glad it’s a short week and we’re playing Thursday, Friday and Saturday instead having to wait all week.”
You can reach David Gray on Twitter @dgray_TDR