For the last two weekends, the LSU baseball team has had to play catch-up.
Tonight, the No. 3 Tigers will try to jump ahead. 
LSU will look to grab a 1-0 series lead for the first time in three weeks when it takes the diamond against Alabama at 7 p.m. tonight at Hoover
Metropolitan Stadium.
The Tigers (24-5, 5-4 Southeastern Conference) went 1-1 against the Crimson Tide (15-12, 4-5 SEC) in a rain-shortened series last season, but that was LSU’s only loss in the last eight meetings of the series. 
“Our job is to go out there to Hoover, [Alabama], this weekend, play
baseball and do the best we can to win the games,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. 
After winning 21 of their first 23 games, the Tigers have gone 3-3 and won one of their two weekend series. During that span, LSU suffered consecutive series-opening losses for the first time since 2011.  
In series-opening losses to Arkansas and Kentucky, the Tigers failed to collect what Mainieri frequently calls “clutch hits.” LSU batted .200 (4-for-20) with runners in scoring position in Game 1 defeats to the Razorbacks and Wildcats and stranded 16 total batters. 
The Tigers were able to rebound from their 5-1 loss to Arkansas on March 19 by outscoring the Razorbacks 23-7 over the final two games of the series, but they couldn’t keep Kentucky from pulling the series upset and subsequently ending their reign as the nation’s No. 1 club. 
Now, LSU faces an Alabama club that has won two of its three series-openers in SEC play, including a 12-9 triumph against No. 4 Florida in the first game of a doubleheader Saturday. 
“They went down and played at Florida this weekend, won an extra-inning game there similar to how Kentucky won an extra-innings game here,” Mainieri said. “You can’t do that if you don’t have talented players.”  
Behind the bat of junior shortstop Alex Bregman, LSU regrouped from its first series loss in nearly 11 months with an 8-6 defeat of UL-Lafayette on Tuesday in the Wally Pontiff Jr. Classic. 
Bregman fueled the Tigers past the Ragin’ Cajuns and nearly hit for the cycle, going 3-for-4 at the plate with a home run, a double and a triple. The only at-bat he didn’t get a hit was on an RBI sacrifice fly in the
bottom of the first.  
LSU senior catcher Kade Scivicque and junior first baseman Chris Chinea also blasted home runs during the Tigers’ during two-run victory, which was LSU’s seventh straight midweek win after dropping a 6-3 decision to Nicholls State on Feb. 18. 
Now, the Tigers hope to carry their momentum into a series against Alabama, which won against UAB on Tuesday  for only the third time in eight games. 
Tonight’s game will also be a chance for LSU sophomore pitcher Jared Poche’ to return to the win column. 
Poche’ hasn’t won since March 13 against Ole Miss, and the southpaw suffered a career-worst outing in the Tigers’ loss Game 1 loss against Arkansas two weeks ago, when he gave up five earned runs on 10 hits in 3 2/3 innings of work. 
Poche’ improved against Kentucky last weekend, holding the Wildcats hitless through four innings and scoreless through six. But Poche’s night unraveled in the seventh, giving up three runs on five hits before being
pulled. 
Poche’ will look to get LSU started on the right foot in what Mainieri said will be another close series. 
“It’s really going to be tight, hard-nosed games, just like the games were this past weekend,” Mainieri said. “We just have to find a way to win them.”  
You can reach David Gray on Twitter @dgray_TDR.