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| 6/8 | LSU Notes: Saturday Features Battle Of Second-Round Picks |
| | BATON ROUGE - LSU won the pitching battle of first-round Major League draft picks assuming Tiger coach Paul Mainieri is correct and Aaron Nola follows Oklahomas Jonathan Gray as an ultra-high pick when hes eligible next year. Now we get to see the second-round picks go at it, Oklahoma coach Sunny Golloway said. Thats pretty impressive after what we just saw. Thats a fact. After Nola won the opener 2-0, LSU will start junior Ryan Eades tonight against Oklahoma lefthander Dillon Overton, both of whom were drafted Friday in the second round. Hopefully hes got that (draft) behind him and will sleep well tonight, Golloway said. Hopefully he slept well last night and will be ready to go. An LSU win sends the Tigers to the College World Series. An Oklahoma win would force a third and deciding game on Sunday night. Continue... |
| 6/7 | Super Showdown: Nola Set For Showdown With OU's Gray |
| | BATON ROUGE LSU will never forget Stony Brook, but the comparisons dont really hold up as the Tigers prepare to host another Super Regional with an eye toward advancing to the College World Series in Omaha. The Tigers were the butt of one college baseballs great Cinderella stories a year ago when little-known Stony Brook, a No. 4 seed in the Miami Regional when the NCAA tournament started, won that one and then didnt blink twice in also shocking LSU in its own home Super Regional. The Tigers claimed they didnt look past the unknown Seawolves, but there are doubters. That wont be a problem this time. Continue... |
| 6/7 | Column: Gray Can Make It A Dark Day For LSU's Small Ball |
| | BATON ROUGE Historically when faced with a pitcher the caliber of Oklahoma ace Jonathan Gray, the only question mark for LSU would be how and where to notify the poor chaps next of kin. The wake of LSUs glory days was littered with high profile, higher draft pick carcasses of hot shot pitchers. They could occasionally get tied up in knots by some lame soft-tosser who drew the short straw and was given a last meal before taking the mound against Gorilla Ball. But if the guy on the mound had eyes on a Major League career, the Tigers were just licking their chops and fighting to get into the batters box. Continue... |
| 6/5 | Regional Features Super Pitchers |
| | LSU baseball, which was semi-lost in cyberspace during much of its Baton Rouge Regional title run last week, will be center stage this weekend when the Tigers host Oklahoma in Super Regionals. The best-of-three series will begin on Friday and all of the games will be shown in prime time with 6 p.m. starts. Fridays game will be on ESPN, with the Saturday game and the Sunday game, if necessary on ESPN2. The first game could be quite a pitching show. LSU head coach Paul Manieri said Tuesday that Aaron Nola will start Fridays game, setting up a showcase showdown between the LSU ace and Jonathan Gray of Oklahoma. Gray is considered a candidate to be the No. 1 pick no worse than top five in the Major League Draft, which will be the day before the super regional opens. Nola, the SEC pitcher of the year, wont be eligible for the draft until next year. Continue... |
| 6/5 | Column: Pardon The Delay, This Column Is Re-Loading |
| | Todays essay comes to you via ESPN3, the handy, sort of spinoff of the world wide leader that, as you know, these days controls the sports landscape and what you get to see of it. I know it would be easier just to read it here in newsprint, but ESPN paid a gazillion dollars for the column rights and they can get it to you however they please. It wasnt my idea. Continue... |
| 6/3 | Bonvillain Steps Up To Send LSU To Super Regionals |
| | BATON ROUGE Sometimes committees get it right. Even if its not always pretty. LSU finished off a second-straight weekend with a championship in its pocket Sunday, digging deep into the pitching staff to hold down UL-Lafayette 5-1 and claim the NCAA tournaments Baton Rouge Regional. Missing their No. 3 starter Cody Glenn due to a regional suspension, LSU didnt miss a beat as three LSU pitchers combined to hold UL-Lafayette to just three hits and one unearned run. To hold that offense to three hits, it just speaks volumes, LSU coach Paul Mainieri said. Theres a new hero every day. Continue... |
| 6/3 | LSU Notes: Tigers Forced To Shuffle Lineup Again |
| | BATON ROUGE - LSU continued to reshuffle its lineup due to more injuries Sunday for the championship round of the NCAA tournament. With leadoff man Sean McCmlulen unavailable to DH after straining a hamstring Saturday night, Mark Laird returned to the lineup in rightfield and led off. Laird, who was still in a walking boot as recently as Friday, hadnt played since twisting an ankle before the Tigers semifinal victory game in the SEC tournament last Saturday. Seldom-used senior Alex Edward moved into the DH spot and second baseman JaCoby Jones moved from No. 7 in the order to the No. 2 hole. LSU was also missing reserve outfielder Chris Sciambra, who was kept home with a high fever Sunday. Continue... |
| 6/1 | LSU Gets Frustrating Win Over Jackson State |
| | BATON ROUGE LSU managed a sluggish victory over Jackson State to open the NCAA tournament Friday. But at what cost? Other than the victory, very little went the way head coach Paul Mainieri would have drawn it up in advance before the Tigers muddled to an 11-7 win to stay in the winners bracket. Maybe one of the more painful wins weve had, Mainieri said after using a lot more pitching than he would have preferred in the opener and watching two of his best players forced to leave the game. It was a rough game. Nothing went by the script today. Continue... |
| 6/1 | Wounded Tigers Heading Into Key Regional Game |
| | BATON ROUGE LSUs Paul Mainieri was already mentally re-arranging his NCAA regional pitching plans during an opening 11-7 victory over Jackson State Friday. Then he watched in horror as a good chunk of his offense went down in a heap in leftfield. Shortstop Alex Bregman held on to a pop fly for the final out of the top of the fourth inning but only after he and leftfielder Raph Rhymes had a scary head-to-head collision that left Rhymes bleeding profusely and Bregman headed to the hospital. Although Rhymes remained face-down and prone on the ground far longer several minutes at least Bregman, who struggled to his feet but remained hunched over, apparently got the worst of it. Continue... |
| 5/29 | Column: SEC Scheduling Held Hostage |
| | It turns out Les Miles is right about one thing. That means the quirky LSU coach is batting .500 with his agenda for the SEC spring meetings (i.e., future football scheduling) this week in Destin, Fla. LSU athletic director Joe Alleva is the vocal front man it doesnt fit Miles jut-jaw take on all comers persona to complain about his schedule being too tough but its no secret that Miles is leading the charge to keep the SEC schedule at eight games while eliminating the one permanent cross-over opponent. Translation: LSU has to play Florida every year while Alabama gets struggling Tennessee annually, and its non-negotiable. Florida evidently is not thrilled about the arrangement itself, but hasnt been vocal enough about it to be considered LSUs ally. Continue... |
| 5/12 | Column: Logic Lost In Some SEC Baseball Rules |
| | Bad weather can make baseball people do strange things. This would have been the 1991 Southeastern Conference baseball tournament, held in Baton Rouge. After a couple of soggy days, persistent nasty weather was playing a lot more havoc at the old Alex Box Stadium than the SEC teams were managing to play baseball. It was of no great concern to most of the six teams there, as five of them were pretty well assured of beginning the NCAA tournament the next week. The exception was Auburn, which, the feeling was, probably needed to take a pretty good bite out of the tournament to punch its ticket to a more meaningful postseason. It was kind of the closest thing to a compelling story line those of us in the media could come up with. Continue... |
| 5/10 | Column: Come On, Bob Stoops. Seriously? |
| | Well, thank you very much, Bob Stoops. Things were getting a little slow in the college football offseason. Spring football is over, recruiting season is long gone and I have it on pretty good authority that the NFL draft did eventually end. You can only re-arrange the deck chairs on those way too early rankings for next season so many times. Somebody needed to a light a fire. Somebody needed to stir the pot. Somebody needed to create a crisis or at least get out there and offend something or someone. So let us all give thanks to the Oklahoma football coach. He recently lobbed a salvo into SEC country, a fire-brand accusation that SEC football isnt all that its cracked up to be. Continue... |
| 5/5 | Column: LSU Baseball Is Looking Familiar Again |
| | LSU has seven regular season games remaining needing to win just three of them for the best regular season in school history. Continue... |
| 5/5 | Tigers Bring Sledgehammers In Place Of Brooms |
| | BATON ROUGE When LSU coach Paul Mainieri arrived at the ballpark Saturday morning, it was still unseasonably chilly. But you could just tell it was going to warm up, Mainieri said. Evidently, he wasnt just talking about the weather. After two games of shivering and scratching for any little run or edge, the Tigers bats came out red hot and completed a weekend sweep of Florida with a giant exclamation point, pounding the Gators for 19 hits in an 18-6 victory. We needed that, as an offense, said shortstop Alex Bregman, who contributed a pair of doubles, three RBIs and three runs. We kind of hit a lull (offensively) the last two weeks. We should be back in the swing now. Continue... |
| 5/4 | Nola Throws Another Gem |
| | BATON ROUGE LSUs Aaron Nola is tough enough under ideal conditions. Friday night it almost seemed unfair for the Florida Gators. Unseasonably cold temperatures with a blue-norther howling in from leftfield combined with a typical Nola outing were way too much for Florida as third-ranked LSU breezed to a 5-0 victory to clinch the Southeastern Conference series. It was cold and bitter for our hitters, too, said Paul Mainieri, who got his 300th win as LSUs head coach with hardly a glance at the bullpen. But Aaron was just phenomenal again tonight. Im glad hes on our team. Continue... |
| 4/28 | Tigers Streak Ends On Missed Opportunities |
| | BATON ROUGE LSUs 21-game home winning streak wasnt supposed to end like this. Not with 14 hits. Not with a good bounce-back performance by starting pitcher Ryan Eades. Not in front of the largest regular season crowd, 10,236, in Alex Box Stadium history. And certainly not on two errors by the Tigers steadiest glove in shortstop Alex Bregman. But, with weather a possible factor for Sunday, that perfect storm hit LSU Saturday night as South Carolina escaped with a 4-2 victory, the Tigers first home SEC loss of the year and the first against anybody since Feb. 23. Continue... |
| 4/28 | Column: Has The Honey Badger Really Learned His lesson? |
| | BATON ROUGE The NFL, well, the Arizona Cardinals anyway, apparently are starting their very own chapter of Big Brothers of America. They do a lot of good work. They may have their hands full here. Its the Big Brothers version of intensive care. But that appears to be the plan. Continue... |
| 4/27 | Nola Finishes The Job Again |
| | BATON ROUGE — This is starting to get boring with Aaron Nola. Jared Foster, on the other hand, was a new development for the streaking LSU baseball team. Nola threw his third straight complete game and Foster, the former Barbe High star, made the most of his first Southeastern Conference start with two key hits as the Tigers grinded out a 5-2 victory over South Carolina in the series opener. “Friday night in the SEC, we’re just going to start calling it the ‘Aaron Nola Show,’” head coach Paul Mainieri said after the sophomore righthander held the Gamecocks to six hits while striking out eight. “He not only does a fantastic job, but he does it in such an efficient way.” Continue... |
| 4/21 | Column: Just Let Zach Make The Call |
| | BATON ROUGE Ding-ding-ding-ding. We have the answer. You want LSUs offense wild and crazy and mostly airing it long and deep all game long? Tired of that steady purple and gold diet of dreaded jumbo packages and up the middle and protecting the football and mainly letting the defense control the outcome. Want some spice in your offense? Some pep in the Tigers step? You dont need a new offensive coordinator. You can even huddle occasionally without slowing things down to a crawl. Its not rocket science. Just let Zach do it. Continue... |
| 4/21 | Tigers Get Through Another Spring Game |
| | BATON ROUGE LSUs Les Miles isnt one to make too much of a spring football game, especially one that was basically decided when the teams were divided with starters on one team and what was left on the other. The key stat, he said. Nobody got hurt. The White rolled to a predictably lop-sided 37-0 victory behind an impressive pitch-and-catch display from quarterback Zach Mettenberger, mostly to wide receivers Odell Beckham and Jarvis Landry. Continue... |
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