After beginning the month of March losing three of four games, LSU coach Paul Mainieri saw he needed to make a change.
Senior shortstop Kramer Robertson batted a combined .066 (1-for-15) against TCU, Baylor, Texas Tech and McNeese State.
Robertson’s bat is one that Mainieri knew the team needed to get hot.
“Kramer had come off a little bit of a rough week in Houston and I just know how important Kramer is to our offense,” Mainieri said. “I really did it just to do it on a temporary basis to kind of get him going again.”
In result, Robertson was moved to the top of the batting lineup after the four-game hitting slump.
The change prevailed.
Robertson answered with a .441 batting average (15-for-34) in the following eight games. Including a 5-for-5 outing in LSU’s Southeastern Conference season opener against Georgia.
“That first night we did it, it worked out so well, I thought let’s give it another day,” Mainieri said. “Then I said, well, we’ve had two pretty good days, talked to the boys about it on Sunday morning and Kramer told me, ‘If it ain’t broke, why fix it?’”
Heading into their second SEC series against Florida, Robertson thinks the lineup could be one that’s hard to contain.
“I think if I can lead the game off and get on base, it scores a good amount of runs for us and that just shows how good the guys behind me have been hitting,” Robertson said. “Antoine, Cole, and Greg have been hitting me in and getting me over by doing their job. It’s a pretty tough lineup to stop when we’re all clicking that way.”
The lineup change also involved placing sophomore outfielder Antoine Duplantis batting third in the lineup.
The 5-foot-11 inch outfielder has also seen an increase in numbers.
Duplantis is batting .472 (17-for-36) with 20 RBIs in the last eight games, and set the LSU record for hits in a game with six, in the same game that Robertson went 5-for-5 against Georgia.
“The only reason it has worked is because Antoine is hitting in the clutch so much,” Mainieri said. “You have to have a guy in that 3-hole that’s going to drive in runs and he has been doing that like crazy ever since we changed the positioning.”
The Tigers are 7-1 since Mainieri made the change to the lineup, with the only loss coming against New Orleans, 7-4.
LSU senior infielders Kramer Robertson (3) and Cole Freeman (8) shake hands after a double play during the Tigers' 5-1 win against the University of Georgia on Saturday, March 18, 2017 at Alex Box Stadium.
