The No. 3 LSU baseball team looks to avenge its first series loss of the season when it travels to Metairie to take on UL-Lafayette in the Wally Pontiff Jr. Classic at 7 p.m. tonight at Zephyr Field.
The Tigers (23-5, 5-4 Southeastern Conference) gave up 20 runs on 40 hits during the weekend while failing to battle back against a pesky Kentucky squad that took them to extra innings twice.
“It was one of the most frustrating weekends I’ve ever coached,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “I’ve had a lot of frustrating weekends … but this weekend, we lost two ball games in extra innings. One of them we literally got the game-winning hit.
“It doesn’t take a long memory to remember back in 2009 we won the national championship and we lost a home series to Illinois and we lost a home series to Tennessee. We finished last in the league that year. Pardon me if I don’t hit the panic button. [We’ve got] a long way to go.”
Although the Tigers let Kentucky creep back into games throughout the series, LSU generated runs of its own. The Tigers hit .341 last week, including a midweek contest with Tulane, and matched the Wildcats with 40 hits of their own during the weekend series.
LSU scored 21 runs against Kentucky with 10 doubles, three triples and five homers. Juniors Chris Chinea and Andrew Stevenson both hit better than .400 on the week with a combined four RBIs.
Sophomore left fielder Jake Fraley contributed seven RBIs of his own with a .353 batting average.
Fraley, who hurt his hamstring in Sunday’s 12-10 loss, will not play against the Ragin’ Cajuns (15-10) tonight. Mainieri said Fraley could possibly be ready for the weekend series against Alabama.
Mainieri said the Tigers were unlucky against the Wildcats with balls not falling their way.
“We hit the ball hard all weekend,” Mainieri said. “Our lineup is outstanding the way it is. This league is a tough league. The difference in the talent between the teams is almost non-discernable. It just comes down to, on a given day, who plays better, who gets the big hit, who makes the big pitch, who makes a big play.”
LSU faces a tough week ahead, starting with the Ragin’ Cajuns. The Tigers dropped their only meeting with ULL last season, 4-1, in a rain shortened, six-inning affair.
Mainieri said he looks forward to playing ULL every season and enjoys the staff it has out in Lafayette.
“I have a great amount of respect for all of their staff and their program,” Mainieri said. “They’ve done a tremendous job over there, and I personally like those guys, too. It’s a game I look forward to, our team looks forward to.”
The Tigers’ fall from No. 1 to No. 3 in the rankings still keeps their seven-week run in the top five alive.
Mainieri said while the weekend’s result was a disappointing one, there’s no need to panic at the halfway point of the season.
“The sky is not falling,” Mainieri said. “I’m as disappointed as anybody, and we’re two games behind Texas A&M and Vanderbilt, but there’s still 21 games to go. We’ll have our opportunities. We just got to look forward and keep going forward and find ways to win games, but we’ve got a good team.”
You can reach Jack Chascin on Twitter @ Chascin_TDR.