In case baseball fans have made it through nearly 50 games this season without noticing it, the “gorilla ball” era of college baseball is dead.
But here’s something they may not have noticed — the LSU baseball team has adapted to this new era of deadened bats to play arguably more successful small ball than any other Southeastern Conference team this season.
LSU is sitting at the middle of most statistical categories in the SEC this season. As of May 5, it was fifth in hits, sixth in batting average, slugging percentage and home runs and seventh in on-base percentage.
Though middling, the Tigers somehow lead the SEC in runs scored.
“We’ve done some good things at times offensively, and I think at times the small ball approach has been necessary,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri.
The current approach is vastly different than what most LSU fans grew up watching.
When LSU made its run toward its five College World Series championships from 1991 to 2000, coach Skip Bertman coined the term “gorilla ball” to describe his mashing lineup.
Those teams set numerous LSU records and had baseball purists everywhere weeping.
Take the 2000 LSU baseball team, which pounded out 864 hits, including 194 doubles and a team batting average of .340 — all team records.
Through 46 games, the 2011 team has 436 hits, with 77 doubles and a team batting average of .290.
The 1997 championship team really set the gold standard when it came to power hitting, blasting 188 home runs with 632 RBI while sporting a .607 slugging percentage — all team records.
This year’s Tigers have hit 30 home runs, collected 278 RBI and have a .414 slugging percentage.
While they have been successful plating runs this season, Mainieri is more concerned about the all-important statistic.
“The only stat I care about is the stat on wins and losses,” Mainieri said. “Unfortunately, even though we might be leading the SEC in runs scored our offense has been very inconsistent.”
The answer to how LSU managed to score more runs than any SEC school seems to lie with its ability to adapt to small ball this season.
The Tigers lead the league in sacrifice flies, are second in sacrifice bunts and are third in stolen bases this season — all categories that put the team in position to score while leading to the possibility of giving up an out to the opponent.
The best example of this 2011 small ball approach is junior third baseman Tyler Hanover, who with 13 sacrifice bunts this season is one sacrifice bunt away from setting a new LSU single-season record.
“I always knew I could bunt, especially with these bat changes,” Hanover said. “I’ve always been a small guy who needed to work the bat well. It’s one more aspect of the game we use.”
While Hanover’s batting average has dipped 23 points from his career norms, he has been asked to handle the bat for sacrifice situations often in 2011.
“I’m really proud of our players taking on a very unselfish attitude about the game,” Mainieri said. “We’ve had to do it primarily because of the bat and partly because of our personnel.”
Of course, it helps when Mainieri has the versatile Mikie Mahtook on the team.
While Mahtook’s .361 batting average leaves him about 40 points shy of contending for the SEC’s triple crown, he is at the top or near the top of several other offensive categories in the conference.
Mahtook is leading the conference in home runs (12), walks (34), total bases (108), runs scored (48), and is tied for the lead in stolen bases (25) and RBI (44).
 
—————
Contact Luke Johnson at [email protected]