Guidry ignited crowd, team in return from injury

By Hunt Palmer

As No. 8 strode to the mound on Friday afternoon, the Alex Box Stadium faithful roared.

LSU was trailing Milwaukee in the sixth inning of the season opener, but the Tigers had drawn to within one. Gavin Guidry, a year and a half after delivery his last pitch in June of 2024, exited to the right field bullpen and returned to the rubber.

“That was awesome,” Guidry said. “Just running out of the gates and hearing them excited to see me back out there just as excited as I am was really awesome.”

Guidry was slated to start LSU’s fifth game in 2025. Back tightness cost him that start. And the next one. Eventually the decision to shut him down for the season was made. He could throw, but the next day severe tightness would limit his range of motion, ability to bend over and overall recovery.

As his teammates chased as national championship, Guidry remained in the dugout.

“It’s really hard to put into words being a Louisiana kid and coming to school here and then kind of having to sit back and watch the guys do it last year,” Guidry said. “And then feeling like it’s my turn to go out there and be a competitor and do what I do, and then being welcomed by the fans always means a lot.”

Guidry responded to the support in the best way. He struck out three straight hitters the last coming on his trademark slider to retire the side and get the Tiger bats back in the box. As the crowd erupted, Guidry echoed the noise with an emphatic roar of his own exiting the mound.

14 pitches. Three strikeouts. @GavinGuidry5 | SECN + pic.twitter.com/M8u0UDfpwR

— LSU Baseball (@LSUbaseball) February 13, 2026

That’s something pitching coach Nate Yeskie and Guidry had talked about avoiding entering last season when Guiry was auditioning for a starter role.

“I kind of had everything settled back in going to the season last year, but we had a lot of talks about after innings just trying to stay as calm as I can,” Guidry said. “Kind of holding that energy in so I can extend a little easier. But, I mean, it was just kind of one of those moments when I get back out there, and I went punchy, punchy, punchy, and that’s what you enjoy doing. It’s just hard to hold that kind of stuff in. I’m just excited to be back out there. That’s all it was.”

Jay Johnson envisioned that scenario, and it played out right in front of his eyes.

“I thought it would give the team and certainly the crowd a charge to see him run out of the bullpen,” Johnson said. “We needed it. We were losing at that time. That was part of it, and it did. As I heard the cheering when he came it. I was like, yeah.”

The offense responded with six runs in the bottom half of the inning to seize control of the game. Guidry struck out the first two hitters in the eighth and retired the side two hitters later. He featured that slider as well as improved fastball velocity and a cut fastball he’d developed since he last toed the rubber in the Chapel Hill Regional in 2024.

The former Gatorade Louisiana Player of the Year at shortstop for Barbe High School doesn’t even resemble the player he was when he first met Johnson.

“That’s a special dude,” Johnson said. “He visited here the day after my press conference and sat down and made sure we were all lined up correctly. I was just like, ‘man I can’t wait to coach this guy because of the character, the makeup.’ And then he tries to do the position player thing. In December of that freshman year, I know exactly where I was. I was on a phone call, and was like, hey, let’s get the arm up and moving, and then you turn around, and he’s throwing the last pitch of the national championship game and closing out big series wins on the road in SEC play.”

Now he’s back, and six innings into the season opener he was summoned again in the biggest spot of the game. Guidry said he visualized himself in those moments all of last season even though he couldn’t pitch. Friday was 18 months in the making.

“He never wavered,” Johnson said. “Like I said, he was standing right next to me for the entire season last year, and he should take a lot of pride in last year’s championship, but he’s a competitor. I don’t want him in the dugout. I want him on the pitcher’s mound.”