LSU Baseball
By Hunt Palmer
Mason Braun earned a starting role on Opening Day for the defending national champions.
The freshman got word from head coach Jay Johnson the day before the game and didn’t tell his parents who had made the trek down from South Bend, In. He wanted them to find out organically. Tears of joy followed, but Braun didn’t deliver a hit in that game against Milwaukee. He’d collect a pair including a double two days later in the Sunday series finale.
Braun enjoyed a sizzling start to his freshman season, racking up eight hits in his first 19 at bats, a .421 start for a player who has done nothing but hit his entire life.
OF/1B Mason Braun (@LSUbaseball) was all over the barrel in G1, collecting 3 hits. Handles the stick well & lots of strength at POC, good pwr upside. Fr./’28 elig. pic.twitter.com/n5EV5TYwif
— PG College Baseball (@PGCollegeBall) February 22, 2026
Those freshman struggles almost always show up, though. And they did for Braun.
From February 27 to March 27, a solid month, Braun endured a 3-for-28 (.107) stretch that pulled him from the everyday lineup as some older players got their chances. The burly freshman kept working and knew that his opportunity hadn’t passed.
As the Tigers scuffled through series losses to Sacramento State, Vanderbilt and Oklahoma, Braun got some pinch-hit chances and a spot start here and there. His full-time re-insertion into the lineup came at Ole Miss. Upperclassmen weren’t producing, and Johnson made the decision to go young.
Braun answered the bell.
Since the series opener at Ole Miss, Braun is 21-for-60 (.350) with 14 walks and four hit by pitches. He’s been on base 39 times in 19 games, failing to do so just three times. Over a stretch from the UNO midweek game to game one at Georgia, Braun scored in 10 straight contests from the leadoff spot.
For the season, he sports a team-best .481 on base average.
Johnson used a term earlier this spring, “growing into their power.” He was insisting that chasing power out of the transfer portal carries too much risk. He’d prefer home grown players like Jake Brown to emerge as power threats later in their careers. Brown hit 12 homers in his first 120 games. He hit 16 in 41 games as a junior.
Ethan Frey and Cade Arrambide are two more examples of players who didn’t hit for power right out of the gate as freshmen but blossomed into big time power threats in time. Frey hit 13 homers as a junior last season after posting just four extra-base hits in the two previous injury-plagued seasons. Arrambide hit four home runs in 36 games as a freshman, a sample size similar to Braun’s. This season he’s exploded with 16.
The same is likely to be true for Braun. During his high school and showcase days, Braun was known for his prodigious power. He hit the longest home run at the MLB Draft Showcase last year and tied for the most 400-foot blasts at the event. He’s already 215 pounds and figures to add muscle during his college career.
To this point, Braun has only homered three times in 120 at bats. Two of those have come against conference pitching. One came back in the first midweek game of the season, an opposite field shot against Kent State.
As this season comes to a close in disappointing fashion for LSU, the emergence of some young players has been a positive. Braun’s ability to shake an early skid and emerge as an on base force and run producer in his first college season ranks near the top of that list.
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