As Alex Box Stadium’s 10,326 seats behind home plate, above the dugouts and around the outfield fill on Friday, the chatter will begin for the 2019 LSU baseball season.
The first pitch of the season will come from junior right-handed pitcher Zack Hess. The preseason Golden Spikes Award candidate looks to continue his great career with a strong start during Military Appreciation Weekend.
Hess had an up-and-down season in 2018, but coach Paul Mainieri showed confidence by naming him the Friday-night starter, having no inclination to return him to the bullpen.
“Any time your head coach puts that kind of faith in you, it obviously means a lot,” Hess said. “It motivates me to go out there and back that confidence he has in me.”
Mainieri’s confidence extends throughout his rotation as freshman right-handed pitcher Landon Marceaux has shown why he will assume the Saturday starting job to begin the season. Marceaux threw well in the team’s intersquads over the past three weeks. In 10.2 innings, he had 17 strikeouts while only giving up three hits and no runs.
Placing a pitcher with that ability as a freshman with two other starting strong pitchers who have pitched in the College World Series, Hess and sophomore right-hander Eric Walker, gives the offense reassurance that they won’t to score a high number of runs every game.
Walker returns from Tommy John surgery to bolster the staff. He proved that he could contribute to a strong staff in 2017 when he had a great run until injuring himself in the College World Series. Each of those three pitchers will be key pieces to keeping the Tigers in the game against the great teams of the SEC.
Florida and Vanderbilt, specifically, continue to have strong pitching. This season, it seems like the Tigers will be on par with the other great SEC rotations.
Sophomore right-hander Ma’Khail Hilliard and senior right-hander Caleb Gilbert are strong arms that aren’t in the weekend rotation that could make up a powerful bullpen potentially being length-pitchers, taking up innings until closing junior right-hander Todd Peterson gets the call.
Another freshman will be in this weekend’s rotation —. Hill was the 2018 Gatorade Player of the Year in Arkansas and posted a dominant earned run average as a senior — 0.5.
Walker was expected to start Sunday, but Mainieri had to make some changes for the weekend.
Mainieri said Hess experienced a slight groin injury putting him a week behind, and Walker is also a little behind, so they won’t be expected to go deep in the game. He didn’t want two major bullpen games in the first weekend.
Both Marceaux and Hill will have the opportunity to pitch five or six innings this weekend with an 80 to 90 pitch limit Mainieri said.
The rotation for the weekend is set, and the lineup is to be expected with junior Josh Smith leading off playing shortstop and senior Brandt Broussard batting behind Smith playing second base. Senior Antoine Duplantis retains his role in right field hitting third, giving the Tigers a left-right-left lineup to begin. Sophomore Daniel Cabrera will hit clean-up and play left field after leading the Tigers with eight home runs last year.
Junior Zach Watson will keep break up the two left-handed bats in a row to hit fifth and play centerfield.
Sophomore catcher Saul Garza hits sixth and looks to bring his power to the SEC as a designated hitter as he recovers from a knee injury.
Freshman Drew Bianco won the first base battle between the four freshmen and will hit seventh. Sophomore Brock Mathis has been hitting balls off of the new scoreboard in Alex Box during scrimmages. He assumes the eighth spot in the lineup and will take up catching duties. Ending the order and looking to flip the lineup is sophomore Hal Hughes who plays the hot corner.
With the logistics for the weekend set, the Tigers are focused on facing ULM Friday at 7 p.m LSU expects to play like the No. 1-ranked team they are and get past this weekend, but the motto is still the same for the Tigers, “one game at a time.”
