By Hunt Palmer
After a year off, Alex Box Stadium will host another regional this coming weekend.
LSU earned the No. 6 national seed and will play host to No. 2 seed Dallas Baptist, No. 3 seed Rhode Island and No. 4 seed Little Rock beginning on Friday afternoon.
The three visiting teams will arrive on Wednesday, and all four team have a scheduled practice at the stadium on Thursday.
In this series, we’ll break down all four squads in depth. It starts with the host team looking to advance out of the Baton Rouge Regional for the 25 time in 28 tries.
HOW’D THEY GET HERE?
LSU has played a consistent brand of baseball all season. The Tigers started 22-1 and won 17 games in a row during that start. LSU won seven of 10 conference weekends and was only swept once.
Those series wins came against No. 3 national seed Arkansas, No. 14 national seed Tennessee, as well as tournament teams like Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi State.
LSU spent time as the nation’s top ranked team in May and is considered a national championship contender entering tournament play.
WHY THEY’LL ADVANCE
For LSU, it starts with Kade Anderson and Anthony Eyanson. Anderson leads the country in strikeouts with 145. Eyanson ranks fourth with 125.
Both Tiger starters feature fastballs north of 95 mph at times and devastating breaking balls. They also have a ton of durability. Only Oklahoma’s Kyson Witherspoon threw more innings among SEC pitchers than Anderson or Eyanson.
Over his last five starts, Anderson has worked 31.2 innings allowing 24 hits and 10 earned runs. He’s walked 11 and struck out 54. LSU is 4-1 in those games, and the lone loss came at Texas A&M when LSU’s offense only managed one run. The sophomore southpaw has recorded double-digit strikeouts in six of his last eight starts.
Not to be outdone, Eyanson’s last six outings have been every bit as good. In 36.2 innings, Eyanson has allowed just six earned runs. He’s got 42 strikeouts against 10 walks. The Tigers are 5-1 in those games.
Only once this season did both Anderson and Eyanson suffer defeat on the same weekend—the sweep at Auburn. Nine times LSU won both starts.
If the Tigers win both starts this weekend, the odds of LSU advancing are strong.
LSU is also elite on defense. The Tigers have only made two errors in their last eight games, and Saturday’s was an errant pickoff throw. LSU only has one multi-error game in since April 11th, and that was the Northwestern State debacle with Jared Jones playing third base.
And then there’s the home crowd and talent advantage. LSU is loaded with future high draft picks. Their counterparts are not. These Tigers are also 30-5 at Alex Box Stadium and 23-2 against non-SEC opponents this season.
WHY THEY WON’T
There have been times when LSU’s offense has gone cold. At Auburn, LSU totaled eight runs on 18 hits in three days. They hit just one home run and struck out 24 times. At Texas A&M, the Tigers managed just seven runs on 21 hits. They struck out 32 times and walked only eight.
Just last weekend LSU only got seven hits in two games.
Weekends like that are the ones that end seasons.
This has not been a season-long problem. LSU scored at least 10 runs in a game against Mississippi State, Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee and Arkansas. Seven of LSU full or part-time starters are hitting over .300 for the season, and four Tigers have double-digit home runs.
It’s reasonable to suggest that some of those averages are inflated by beating up on non-SEC teams. However, for this weekend, LSU won’t see any SEC arms.
It’s just those dry stretches of 14 or 15 innings over two days that can doom this team.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Ethan Frey: .356avg, 12HR, 10 2B, 43RBI
Jared Jones: .333avg, 19HR, 14 2B, 66RBI
Zac Cowan: 2.38ERA, 45.1IP, 35H, 10R, 9ER, 53K, 10BB, 6SV
