By Hunt Palmer
A pair of hot baseball teams tangle at Alex Box Stadium on Tuesday night.
No. 7 LSU welcomes Louisiana Tech to Baton Rouge for a midweek affair. The Bulldogs have won three weekends in a row and seven of 10 overall. LSU has won four in a row and has not dropped a midweek game all season.
Louisiana Tech has enjoyed some success against LSU in recent years. After losing 12 in a row in Baton Rouge, the Bulldogs dusted LSU 11-1 in 2019. Tech swept both games against LSU in 2022, one in Ruston and one at Alex Box Stadium.
The Bulldogs are 17-11 on the season and 0-1 against SEC opponents. Oklahoma beat the Bulldogs 9-5 in Norman back on March 12.
This will be an extended south Louisiana stay for Tech. They’ll visit Louisiana-Lafayette on Wednesday.
FORMER TIGER TRIO
Three current Bulldogs started their careers at LSU. Brody Drost, Zeb Ruddell and Will Safford all wore the purple and gold at one point in time.
Drost has started 16 games for Tech and is hitting .286 with a homer and 14 RBI. Ruddell has started 21 games and is hitting .268. Safford leads the team in steals with nine but is only hitting .174 after 25 starts.
CATCHING CADE
While Luis Hernandez has won the starting catcher role, Cade Arrambide is still getting his work in the midweek. In the two wins over New Orleans and UL-Lafayette, Arrambide is 4-for-8 with a double, two homers and five runs driven in.
Tuesdays offer a chance for Hernandez to get off his feet, especially in these short weeks where the team travels on Wednesday and plays on Thursday.
At the same time, Arrambide gets a chance to swing the bat a little bit and work on his defense.
PITCHING PLANS
Jaden Noot has done a great job in his last two midweek starts. However, this week may look a little bit different. Noot pitched the final two innings of Saturday’s win. He threw 27 pitches in the process. Noot can almost certainly pitch in Tuesday’s game, but it’s unlikely he will throw as many pitches as he has the last three weeks (41, 67, 62).
William Schmidt did not pitch at all over the weekend. He’s a safe bet to see some time on Tuesday.
For the second consecutive midweek game, Zac Cowan and Casan Evans are likely unavailable. That’s less of an issue when the offense scores nine runs in the first inning like LSU did last week against ULL.
First pitch on Tuesday night is set for 6:30 and can be heard in Baton Rouge on WDGL 98.1 FM.
