Gavin Guidry’s season is over before it started.
The junior right hander has missed the first nine weeks of the season dealing with an issue in his back. It has not improved, and Tuesday night Jay Johnson revealed that Guidry would have a procedure to resolve the issue. Guidry will not pitch in 2025.
“Unfortunately, he’s going to have a procedure on Friday, a back procedure that is going to knock him out for the rest of the season,” Johnson said during his postgame interview following the 10-3 win over McNeese.
“I am optimistic the recovery from the surgery is only three-to-four months, so we expect him to be back. We expect him to pitch for us and just want to support Gavin in the best way possible. It’s kind of been like a roller coaster of things. The last time he pitched was February 7, which was one week before the season. He actually threw a bullpen on the Monday after the first series of the year against Purdue-Fort Wayne. There was no point in using him because those were blowout scores. He was going to start the game at Nicholls that we got rescheduled because of rain. He woke up the next morning and did not feel well. We got an MRI and felt like we could treat it with some medicine. And we did that and got it back to where he could throw again and we were building the throwing program back up. He threw a bullpen at Texas and then the next week we felt like we were moving closer to “go.” It wasn’t feeling good, tried one more round of treatments, reimaged it and basically the medicine was masking pain for a little while but not fixing the issue. After that, we’ve tried a couple more things and it got to ‘hey, we’ve got to get this procedure done so he can get this behind him’ and we expect him to make a full recovery.”
“On two fronts have been really positive. He’s been great in the dugout. He’s been great in the dugout. He’s been very engaged with the team. He literally sits down pretty close to where I am. On the other end, he’s got a window now where he can recover properly, get ready for next fall and should be able to pitch again in the fall.”
Entering the season, Guidry was LSU’s most experienced returning pitcher. Over two seasons, the Barbe product had worked 53 innings with a 3.23 ERA and six saves. He recorded the final out of the 2023 national title game as a freshman.
In the fall, Guidry had made strides with his velocity and command of a change up to pair with his sharp curveball. He was thought to be a candidate as a starting pitcher.
