Halfway through Southeastern Conference play, No. 12 LSU finds itself in an unusual position — tied for last place in the SEC Western Division. The Tigers (26-13, 7-8 SEC) hit the road this weekend to compete against the University of Arkansas (31-8, 8-7 SEC) in a three-game series.
The last road trip for the Tigers against Alabama earlier this month was the beginning of LSU’s three series losing streak in the SEC and resulted in its plummet in conference standings. The team dropped its second consecutive SEC series to the Tide. The last time the Tigers won on the road in an SEC series was in the conference opener against Georgia.
The Tigers’ motivation does not stop there. The team has a chance to redeem itself from a three-game sweep last year against the Razorbacks.
Away games have not proved to be strong performances for the team, including its trip Tuesday to Metairie to take on the Tulane Green Wave in a mid-week game. After an 11-8 loss, the Tigers spent the rest of the week focusing on this weekend’s SEC opponent — the one players agree is the most important.
“We have to concentrate and put [the Tulane loss] behind us,” said senior first baseman Clay Harris. “Arkansas is an SEC weekend and from now on they’re all big. So that’s what we have to do. We have to focus on Arkansas especially now. We have to take it one series at a time.”
Harris and fellow senior Ryan Patterson are leading the Tigers on offense, which stand at a .300 batting average as a team. But the losing pitcher against Tulane, Brandon Nall, said he feels if the defense steps up the team will be successful this weekend.
“This series this weekend means the most. Yeah, we wanted to beat Tulane, but this is SEC and that’s the most important,” Nall said. “Pitching just has to get better — plain and simple. I got to do better. The hitters did their job tonight. It’s going to take good solid hitting and pitching. If the hitting does what it did tonight and we have solid pitching we’ll win all the games this weekend.”
Solid pitching will be in the hands of the usual weekend pitching rotation of Lane Mestepey, Clay Dirks and Greg Smith.
Senior left-hander Mestepey (5-5) will begin Friday night’s game. Last weekend’s match-up against Ole Miss was Mestepey’s shortest outing in which he lasted only 1.2 innings. The senior pitcher will take the mound Friday night with 3.41 ERA on the season.
Friday’s starter for No. 14 Arkansas is the only one coach Dan Van Horn has announced for the weekend. He will send freshman Nick Schmidt to the mound. The lefty is 5-1 on the season. The Tigers spent their mid-week game taking cuts at Tulane lefty J.R. Crowel.
“We swung the bats pretty well [Tuesday night] so we’re taking some confidence into this weekend,” said junior first baseman Will Harris after the loss to Tulane. “We’re facing two lefties [in Arkansas]. We hit Crowel really well, so it looks good and we’re ready to play.”
While the Razorbacks have not announced the starters for the remainder of the weekend, LSU coach Smoke Laval is sticking to starting sophomore Clay Dirks (7-1) on Saturday and junior Greg Smith (5-2) in Sunday’s contest.
The series will kick off tonight at 7 p.m. The first pitch on Saturday will be at 3 p.m. before wrapping up the series at 1 p.m. Sunday. Sunday’s contest can be seen on Jumbo Sports Network.