By Hunt Palmer
After a substandard offensive weekend, LSU is looking for some answers.
Jay Johnson tends to keep his points of emphasis and team adjustments close to the vest. He did some of that Sunday and Monday postgame. Asked if the team was straying from the team’s plan, Johnson opened up a bit.
“I would say that’s a fair assessment.” the coach said. “And it’s our job to help coach them to success. We take a lot of pride in that, and we’ll make necessary adjustments to help them be better at that so we collectively can be better.”
It truly is a team struggle. Jake Brown delivered a pair of big hits on Sunday, but no one in the lineup performed last week like the majority of the team did through two weeks.
That’s a recipe for low scoring output, which LSU produced over the weekend. It also, oddly enough, puts everyone in the fight together.
“The biggest thing is just putting our trust in each other,” said sophomore catcher Cade Arrambide. “Every single guy in that dugout and every single guy on our whole team just really wants us to do well for each other…So, when we’re struggling, everybody in the dugout is just trying to pick you up and make sure that you’re ready for the next one.”
Johnson’s most specific answer when asked about the struggle came in regard to LSU’s mental approach in the box. Hitting a baseball is hard enough with a clear mind. When external factors like personal accolades or professional futures creep in, it make matters more difficult.
At LSU, those types of players are littered throughout the lineup. Major League Baseball is always watching. Reserve catcher Eddie Yamin hasn’t started a game at LSU. Johnson mentioned his Monday home run as an example of a player not encumbered by a lot of ancillary pressures.
“It’s probably an indication of how important mindset is in baseball.” Johnson said. “The terms I’ll use is when you have psychological freedom, you play the game competitively and freely. Eddie Yamin wasn’t worrying about a batting average, wasn’t worried about anything. He was up there trying to take a great at bat, and he did.”
Baseball seasons inevitably produce slumps. Adversity is a certainty. Johnson has coached a pair of title teams that endured their bumps in the road.
These just appeared seemingly out of nowhere after a ripping hot offensive start to the season.
“There’s a little bit of growing pains for this team,” Johnson said. “I’m not going to single out a player or anything like that. There are some growing pains that we’re going through that if used correctly will help us be what we want to be. That’s how we’ll choose to be use them.”
In some cases, just moving on is the best course.
The Tigers visit a surging Louisiana-Lafayette team on Wednesday that has won nine of 10 and will have a packed stadium waiting on their visits from the east. Dwelling on a poor showing Monday won’t be much help.
“The biggest thing is being able to move past it,” Arrambide said. “I think that was our whole deal last year is just getting away from our previous failure and just moving on to the next moment. As a hitter, one at bat, a few games, doesn’t define your season. You can have a couple of bad at bats, a couple of bad games, and you can get rolling again. Just not getting caught up with failure.”
LSU was rolling just eight days ago. The next spurt is always a game away.
The struggles becomes more digestible when put in context. LSU slugged like crazy to open the season. Johnson feels confident the tigers will rebound quickly with four more games coming in five days.
“There’s a good baseball team here,” Johnson said. “We’ve played good this year with this team. Not last year’s team or championship this or that. These guys have played good baseball. I believe in our pitching staff. I believe in what that rotation is becoming, and it’s going to give us a chance to be in a lot of games. And we have ways to finish games. So, we just have to collectively put the thing together so that it puts us in the best position to be successful often. I’m looking forward to continuing to do that.”
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