LSU Baseball
By Hunt Palmer
A week ago, I wrote that every LSU pitcher had a bad year.
I’m not backing off that now that the dust has settled. It was a pitching staff high on talent that underperformed across the board. Ultimately, that’s why LSU is making summer plans instead of tuning into the selection show on Memorial Day.
For the season, LSU ranked dead last in the SEC in runs allowed, earned runs allowed, walks issued and wild pitches. They were 15th in ERA and WHIP and 14th in hit batters.
Somehow, LSU led the SEC in strikeouts.
WILD STATS
The wild pitches part of this equation is stunning. It’s not stunning that LSU led the conference. We all watched that. It’s stunning that the margins were as wide as they were.
LSU threw 90 wild pitches. Kentucky was second worst in the league with 62, a 28 pitch gap. Thirteenth in the SEC, a horrible position to be in, was 45. Half. LSU uncorked 53 wild pitches in 30 league games. Thirteenth in the SEC had 25, less than half.
LSU lost six league games by one or two runs. In the process, they were giving away free 90 feet twice as often as almost every team in the league. With the 13 passed balls, that’s 75 free bases in 58 games.
TOP TWO
This comparison is not totally fair. Every 1-2 punch in LSU history would look pedestrian compared to the run Kade Anderson and Anthony Eyanson went on last season. Both took a couple of early-season starts to get their feet under them, and when it clicked in March, it was all over for the rest of the country.
That never happened for Casan Evans and William Schmidt. They weren’t awful. They just didn’t take the big step forward many had hoped.
Kade Anderson: 119 IP, 91 H, 44 R, 42 ER, 35 BB, 180 K, .211 opp BA, 3.18 ERA
Anthony Eyanson: 108 IP, 88 H, 39 R, 36 ER, 38 BB, 152 K, .218 opp BA, 3.00 ERA
Casan Evans: 60.2 IP, 54 H, 43 R, 40 ER, 31 BB, 89 K, .231 opp BA, 5.93 ERA
William Schmidt: 64 IP, 54 H, 34 R, 30 ER, 31 BB, 85 K, .224 opp BA, 4.22 ERA
Anderson and Eyanson made four NCAA Tournament starts each which certainly skews the numbers. Schmidt didn’t pitch the last two weeks of the season. Evans got hurt. But LSU’s two lead horses didn’t eat innings or dominate in the same way. That was going to have to happen for LSU to emerge as a championship threat. It didn’t.
Evans’s ERA almost jumped four points from 2.05 to 5.93. He really only dominated one game, the 15-strikeout win over Oklahoma.
Their walk totals were too high, and the ERAs followed.
BULLPEN BLUES
No one on LSU’s staff, aside from Cooper Moore, sported an ERA better than 4.18.
The highest leverage arms were not good at keeping runs off the scoreboard.
Grant Fontenot: 4.18 ERA
Deven Sheerin: 4.78 ERA
Zac Cowan: 5.32 ERA
Santiago Garcia: 5.96 ERA
Gavin Guidry: 6.39 ERA
Marcos Paz: 9.20 ERA
Last season, Evans and Zac Cowan had ERAs under 3.00. LSU could count on them late in games. That option never presented itself in 2026 despite some returning arms in the mix.
LSU only held SEC opponents two three or less runs five times. Three of those came in one weekend against South Carolina. That means LSU only did it two other time in 27 tries. The pitching did it 14 times in 30 league games a season ago.
LSU certainly had defensive issues, some weak spots in the lineup and injury problems. Nothing negatively impacted the 2026 team more than pitching problems, though.
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