By Hunt Palmer
Kent State spent the weekend bashing baseballs all over Hammond.
The Golden Flashes swept Southeastern Louisiana in three games by scoring 33 runs on 33 hits including nine home runs. Last season, Kent State went 38-18 and won 23 of 30 conference games. Their bats went cold in the MAC Tournament, so they missed out on postseason play.
They’ll be bringing to bats to The Box on Monday night at 6:00 pm.
NOOT AT NIGHT
Jaden Noot did not pitch for LSU over the weekend, so he’s a likely candidate to start on Monday. He made five starts a season ago and posted a 4.13 ERA for the season. He struck out 22 over his final 14.1 innings over seven appearances.
He features a fastball that will sit around 93 mph, and his best pitch is a split changeup that fades away from left-handed hitters.
SLUGGING SOLITARIA
Sawyer Solitaria feasted on Lion pitching over the weekend. He was 8-for-15 with three homers in the series. The 6-foot-5, 225-pound sophomore hit two longballs in the opener and added one Saturday. He reached base 10 times in the series.
LSU will have to proceed with caution with the Golden Flashes’ right fielder. He can swing it.
BACKSTOP BREAKS
Last season Jay Johnson felt he may have worked Luis Hernandez a little bit too much. The demands playing catcher puts on the body make it tough to produce offensively.
Once Cade Arrambide took some of that workload on Saturdays and Tuesdays, Hernandez started to produce more offense. This season, Arrambide is going to be leaned on to be a key offensive contributor, so Omar Serna may be asked to help him defensively a couple of times per week. Arrambide was the designated hitter on Saturday, and he may be again on Monday night.
Serna is no slouch offensively. He hit one 118 mph on Sunday. That was 10 mph harder than anyone else. Second place? Arrambide.
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