LSU freshman pitchers Alex Lange and Jake Godfrey are both anxious to make their second collegiate starts, but for completely different reasons.
Lange will try to prove his five-inning shutout against Kansas last weekend wasn’t a fluke. Godfrey hopes to show his brief, three-run outing against the Jayhawks was.
Both Lange and Godfrey will likely get starting nods from LSU baseball coach Paul Mainieri when the Tigers (3-1) play host to Boston College (2-2) this weekend at Alex Box Stadium.
While Godfrey will look to improve upon his first performance at the Box, Mainieri said there isn’t much Lange needs to change from his debut last Saturday.
“Obviously with Lange’s performance, I think we’d be hard pressed to find a more impressive first outing of any freshman pitcher in the country,” Mainieri said. “First pitch was 95 [mph] right on the knees [for] strike one. That’s the stuff that legends that are made out of.”
Lange (1-0) dominated Kansas from the start. The rookie right-hander’s first three pitches clocked at 95, 94 and 93 mph before he fooled a Jayhawk batter into swinging at a breaking ball for his first career strikeout.
Lange pitched five scoreless innings for LSU, striking out seven batters while surrendering two hits before being relieved in the sixth inning. Lange did walk and hit a batter on separate occasions, but those rookie miscues never cost the Tigers any runs.
However, Lange didn’t dwell on his impressive debut for long.
“Coach Mainieri always says when the next days comes, it’s time to focus on the next game,” Lange said. “So I got to enjoy that until about midnight.”
For his next start, Lange said he’s hoping to get a repeat performance from the Tigers’ defense, which he credited as being responsible for his eye-catching debut.
“When you have a defense behind you that like how we did and they’re making the plays for you, it makes pitching easy,” Lange said. “You just try to get ahead early and them put the ball in play, and your defense is going to make the plays. Playing with a defense like that behind you is a big confidence booster, especially for a young pitcher.”
However, Godfrey is hoping for a completely different outing than his first, from both himself and LSU’s defense.
The right-hander pitched 3.2 innings in his debut last Sunday, surrendering three runs on two hits and three walks. Godfrey also hit a batter, threw a wild pitch that resulted in a runner scoring from third base and gave up a solo home run.
But Godfrey wasn’t discouraged by his rocky debut. He said every game is a chance to learn and improve.
“That’s growing,” Godfrey said. “That’s experience. That’s what we wanted. That’s what Mainieri wants us to be at when we get out there. He throws us in those situations because he wants that experience to happen.”
Despite saying Godfrey pitched just an “OK” game, Mainieri was pleased with his young pitcher’s resolve after the Tigers’ infield made things worse with a few costly blunders.
LSU committed three errors with Godfrey on the mound, but the rookie pitched through the defensive mistakes and allowed only one earned run, something his coach was glad to see.
“I wanted to see how he’d handle adversity, and he handled it really well,” Mainieri said. “We gave him an A for poise and composure and maturity out there on the mound and for what he’s been up to this point. He’s going to be fine. He’s going to get better. We’re going to keep running him out there, and I think we’ll see some good stuff out of him.”
Despite Godfrey and the infield’s struggles, the Tigers picked up the win and the freshman learned some invaluable lessons about patience, focus, and pitching stress-free, which he said was more important than his individual performance.
“I was making stressful pitches and a lot of extra pitches, and that’s really what it came down to,” Godfrey said. “That hinders you in late innings. When you get tired because you’ve thrown so many stressful pitches, it’s going to hurt your game.”
But like Lange, last weekend’s performance doesn’t matter anymore to Godfrey — he’s moved on to the next start.
“The greatest thing is we get to do it all over again this weekend,” Godfrey said.
You can reach David Gray on Twitter @dgray_TDR.

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