OMAHA – LSU sophomore left-handed pitcher Jared Poche’ will start in the Tigers’ (53-10) first game of the College World Series against TCU, LSU coach Paul Mainieri announced Friday morning.
The Lutcher, Louisiana, native is coming off two of his best outings of his career in LSU’s Regional clinching win against UNC-Wilmington and its Super Regional clinching win against UL-Lafayette.
Poche’ (9-1, 2.91 ERA) tossed 8 ⅔ innings against the Seahawks on June 1, striking out a career-high eight batters while holding UNCW scoreless. He then followed that performance with 7 ⅔ innings start against the Ragin’ Cajuns on June 7, fanning another seven batters with only one earned run allowed. In both starts, the southpaw walked just one batter.
Poche’ seems to have shaken off his two final outings before postseason play began, where he allowed a total of 11 runs in seven combined innings. Pitching coach Alan Dunn attributed Poche’s resurgence to his short memory.
“You have to have [a short memory] in this game,” Dunn said. “You are not going to go out every day and have top-line stuff every time you pitch. It just doesn’t happen. The best pitchers in the game don’t do that. When you don’t have that, you have to maneuver through the game. You got to figure some things out and make that big pitch [or] get that big out. That puts you on kind of a roll, and that’s what that kid has done.”
Mainieri, though he wouldn’t go into great detail, said there are several reasons he’s giving Poche’ the ball.
“Poche’ has been our opening game starter for most of the year on our weekend series,” Mainieri said. “He’s the grizzled veteran in his sophomore year on our staff with all our freshman pitchers. He’s pitched two terrific games in a row in the postseason, so he’s pitching with a lot of confidence. He’s got a little bit of experience and a lot of moxy.”
Perhaps the dominant reason Poche’ is getting the start in favor of freshman ace Alex Lange is the amount of left-handed Horned Frog (49-13) hitters. From its projected lineup, TCU offers six left-handed hitters and two switch hitters.
The left-on-left matchup doesn’t surprise TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle, but he doesn’t feel it’s necessarily a disadvantage to his club.
“We knew going into the season that we were going to play a lot of left-handed hitters,” Schlossnagle said. “When in doubt, the coach normally takes the left-hander. NC State did that. Texas A&M did that. … Some of those lefties on our team, they hit lefties as well if not better than right-handed pitchers. Certainly, it adds an element to the run game that we have to deal with, but, again, we’ve seen that all season long.”
Poche’s adversary on the hill is senior right-hander Preston Morrison, who last pitched in the Horned Frogs’ Game 2 loss to Texas A&M in the Super Regional. Morrison (11-3) also started TCU’s opening game of last year’s College World Series, striking out a career-high 10 batters in a 3-2 win against Texas Tech.
Morrison, who was a sixth round draft pick by the Chicago Cubs, tied that career-high in the Horned Frogs’ second game of their regional against NC State, which was a 4-5 loss. In eight career games started in the NCAA Tournament, though, the righty is 0-3.
“Preston is the best pitcher in the history of our school [or] the most successful, at least,” Schlossnagle said. “[He doesn’t have] the biggest arm, but he’s just got great presence. He pitched really well here last season. He’s not going to be wowed by the environment in any sense of the word. He’s going to give us – at least I think on that particular day – the best chance to be successful.”