If this season is any indication, the LSU baseball team will stifle opposing offenses for the next two years.
The reason — a freshman pitching staff that has been heavily used but rarely abused.
This season, no other Southeastern Conference club has relied on freshman pitchers more than No. 1 LSU (38-7, 14-6 SEC), which begins a weekend series against Mississippi State (23-22, 7-14 SEC) at 6:30 p.m. tonight at Dudy Noble Field.
The Tigers’ freshman arms have started more than half the games this season, and they’ve pitched in 45 percent of the total innings.
Freshman pitcher Jake Godfrey (6-0, 4.00 ERA), who has recently become a key piece of the Tigers’ bullpen, said he didn’t know how he and his fellow rookies would fare in their debut season, but the early success hasn’t shocked him.
“Coming in, we knew we had a special class,” Godfrey said. “Fortunately, we’ve ended up actually showing our talent.”
The Tigers lost seven pitchers — including first-round pick Aaron Nola — from last season’s staff that finished second in the SEC in ERA and third in batting average.
But the pitchers from LSU’s recent No. 1 recruiting class have filled the voids.
LSU coach Paul Mainieri has used six freshman pitchers this season — Godfrey, Alex Lange, Ryan May, Jesse Stallings, Doug Norman and Austin Bain. Together, the six rookies have made 76 appearances and have given up 74 runs, or 0.97 per outing.
Their combined ERA currently sits at 2.67, trailing only Vanderbilt’s 2.40 ERA for the best in the SEC among freshman pitching staffs. Four of the Tigers’ freshman pitchers who have pitched at least 25 innings this season have a sub-3.00 ERA, one less than the rest of the SEC combined.
With the end of the regular season less than three weeks away, Lange (7-0, 1.86 ERA) said he doesn’t feel like a freshman anymore, a sentiment his fellow rookies echoed.
“You kind of get those jitters out of the way early,” Lange said. “It’s about just playing baseball and getting outs. We don’t really think about age or whether we’re freshmen, sophomores or juniors. It doesn’t matter because that guy in the box doesn’t care. He just wants to get a hit.”
The Tigers’ freshman pitching staff has tossed 195 and 2/3 of a possible 426 innings this season, comfortably ahead of second-place Vanderbilt, which has leaned on rookie pitchers for 150 innings. The only other club to use freshman pitchers for at least 100 innings is Missouri (104 and 2/3 innings).
Lange, Godfrey, Bain and Norman have started 25 of LSU’s 45 games this season, going 17-3 in those outings. Five other SEC clubs have started freshman pitchers in at least 10 games, but Texas A&M is the next closest with 15.
Though the freshmen didn’t know how they’d perform this season, the upperclassmen expected good things.
“When they come in as highly touted as they were, we expect a lot out of them,” said LSU sophomore pitcher Jared Poche’. “They’ve filled those roles so far. They’ve played a huge role in our success.”
The Tigers will lose only three pitchers to graduation after this season, meaning they’ll likely bring back the remaining 13. Stallings, who leads the SEC in saves with 11, said the staff could be even better next season.
“Our starting rotation is a sophomore and two freshmen,” Stallings said. “Next year we’ll have those same guys, and they’ll be a year older. We’re going to lose position players for sure to the [MLB] draft, but we’re going to have a lot of returning pitchers. It’s going to be a deep pitching staff.”
You can reach David Gray on Twitter @dgray_TDR.