LSU baseball has been piling on runs no matter who they face in 2026, and while the Tigers’ right fielder is getting most of the offensive attention so far, there is one batter flying under the radar early in his junior campaign.
Oregon State transfer Trent Caraway has quickly made a name for himself as a utility player in purple and gold. He’s taken over third base for the most part this season after senior Michael Braswell III graduated as a 2025 national champion.
Yet, Caraway has truly locked his spot in the lineup with a clutch bat in the first few games of the season.
He is batting .375 after the game against Nicholls State on Wednesday, but it’s not the numbers that make his story interesting. Once he touched ground in Baton Rouge, Caraway said he completely changed his batting stance.
“I kind of made a swing adjustment, kind of just calming things down and not having as much movement in my swing,” Caraway said in a preseason press conference. “I’ve always toe tapped, and now I’m kind of doing a normal stride, keeping my head still is helping me see pitches better.”
He has definitely seen pitches well so far this season. He’s had six hits in 16 at-bats so far this season, but he’s done more than what the numbers suggest.
He started a huge third-inning rally in Game 3 versus Milwaukee on Sunday, and he went yard against Nicholls to give the Tigers a lead in the first inning. His home run wasn’t just a solo shot; he clutched up with the bases loaded to garner four RBIs.
He came to LSU to play in big moments, and he’s done that so far. Caraway hasn’t been scared of high-pressure moments, and he shows this when there are ducks on the pond. He’s been an RBI machine so far this season, putting up 10, which is second-best on the team.
He also came to LSU for the resources to allow him to succeed at the next level, and he’s shown how prepared he is for the current level throughout the five games this season.
He hit a bases-loaded triple as well as his grand slam on Wednesday, and he said postgame that he felt like he was due.
“I was kind of thinking about it like, ‘Shoot, everyone is hitting homers, I need to homer,’” Caraway said postgame. “It’s all good, especially having the bases loaded in the first inning, and just kind of knocking them out. That felt really good.”
One of the biggest things so far in the 2026 season has been this team’s depth. In several games, the entire field has moved around in different positions to get some in-game reps. Caraway’s versatility on the field has given him a start in each game, even when head coach Jay Johnson shook the entire infield up on Sunday.
Caraway started at second base, played third base when Seth Dardar came in to pinch hit, and then played shortstop when the entire infield was subbed out. He only came out of the game so another player could pinch hit when the Tigers were up by over 15 runs.
He said postgame on Wednesday that the first time he ever played second base in a game was when he got that start.
He’s always wanted to play in the Bigs, and he’s putting on an encore performance in what is hopefully his last stop before pro-ball with everything he’s shown off so far this season.
Caraway might be slightly overshadowed by the noise Jake Brown is making right now, but his consistency will make him stand out when the bat gets passed to him in the big moments. It’s why he came to LSU, and that’s what drives him to success.
“My dream is to be a major league baseball player,” Caraway said. “It’s something I had to do: come out to Louisiana and prove it to myself and win a national championship.”
