The No. 1 LSU baseball team has regained its position at the top of the polls heading into its midweek game against in-state rival Tulane tonight at 6:30 p.m. at Alex Box Stadium.
The Tigers (34-6, 12-5 Southeastern Conference) earned the No. 1 ranking for the first time since March 29 after finishing last week 3-0, including a doubleheader sweep of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, on Saturday.
“At this point, it’s just kind of business as usual,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “It’s great to be ranked No. 1 in the country. I’d certainly rather be the No. 1 team in the country than anything else. It does add a little bit of spice to the weekend series that’s for sure.”
LSU takes on the Green Wave (24-15) tonight before its most important series of the season against No. 2 Texas A&M, which begins Thursday. The Aggies (35-5, 12-5 SEC) are tied with the Tigers atop the Western Division heading into the weekend series.
While the weekend series goes a long way in deciding the Tigers’ fate, LSU can’t overlook the challenge Tulane presents.
The Green Wave has the best team ERA in the American Conference at 2.74 while holding opposing batters to a .239 batting average. Tulane is coming off a series sweep of UCF, in which it shut out its opponent in all three games.
Tulane’s pitching staff is streaking and will be out for revenge after allowing 13 runs in a 13-7 loss to the Tigers on March 24th in New Orleans.
“We throw [the weekend series] on the back burner and worry about Tulane,” said junior shortstop Alex Bregman. “It’s [Mainieri’s] motto to worry about one game at a time, one pitch at a time, and we have to take that mindset this week. We can’t worry about [Texas A&M]. We’re worried solely about Tulane.”
The Tigers will hope to get their bats warmed up against the Green Wave, much like they did in their first meeting, in order to create some reasonable momentum heading into the weekend.
LSU has won its last four games by a total of 34 runs while racking up 44 hits along the way. The Tigers’ bats have been a bright spot throughout the season and have shown no fear against opposing pitching thus far, ripping off 19 hits against Tulane in the teams’ last meeting.
LSU senior catcher Kade Scivicque continues to stay hot at the plate, finishing the weekend 5-for-7 with a double, home run and three RBIs. Scivicque extended his hitting streak to 23 games, which ties Bregman’s mark set for longest hitting streak since 2013.
Scivicque possesses a team-leading .404 batting average coupled with a team-lead in slugging percentage (.610) and on-base percentage (.432).
LSU freshman pitcher Austin Bain will take the mound for the Tigers tonight in a limited role. Mainieri said Bain will likely go one to two innings depending on the pitch count to warm him up for his Saturday start against Texas A&M after missing his scheduled start against Georgia.
With much on the line heading into the weekend, the Tigers will look to get all the momentum and confidence they can heading into Thursday.
“It’s always exciting when what is considered the top two teams in the country by most people’s view get to play out there on the field and match each other’s abilities,” Mainieri said. “It’ll be an exciting weekend, but I really don’t want to talk much about it because we’ve got a big game [tonight], which has got our total focus.”
You can reach Jack Chascin on Twitter @Chascin_TDR.