Tuesday showed the response to adversity Johnson wants for LSU

By Hunt Palmer

Spring break means more work for LSU baseball players.

While their classmates head home for the week or find a beach, the Tiger players aren’t restricted to normal NCAA practice regulations. So, they practice, even on game day.

“We’re getting better,” said LSU head coach Jay Johnson. “I know it’s not at the pace that I want to or everybody wants it. We’re working hard. They were here at 1:00 (Tuesday) for a 6:30 game and worked their tails off.”

Mired in a stretch as bad as any in the Johnson era, LSU is trying to battle out. Entering Tuesday’s tilt with Creighton, LSU had lost four of five due to issues all over the field. The bats had bottomed out time and time again, and routine defensive plays have been sloppy for two weeks.

That just means more work.

“We had a good mindset meeting,” Johnson said. “They brought the right mindset to the meeting. We went out on the field, and we did some high intensity fast catch defensive stuff just to get the energy going. We did what we call a red zone BP scrimmage where we’re just trying to move the ball, have bat control with swings, get guys in even though we didn’t a couple of times today.”

After four innings, that work didn’t appear to have paid off. From the fifth on, though, LSU responded, outscoring the Bluejays 6-0 to win 8-4. It wasn’t a work of art for nine innings, but Johnson saw it as a positive.

“I’m actually very happy the way we won the game,” the skipper said. “Yes, I want to play better, but I think there’s more value in them getting through the mistakes and finding a way to win the game.”

Playing at LSU comes with immense pressure. Sometimes The Intimidator in right field can turn on its own players, especially if they’re new to the program or new to a role on the team. A national championship standard is a high bar for 56 straight games.

“We have a lot of players in a new deal, either new to here or in new roles,” Johnson said. “Of course, we want to be a more ahead of where we are, but I’m optimistic about where we can go if they continue to mature. Tonight was a great what I call growth step for our team. It doesn’t guarantee anything, but I sure liked what I saw out of the players. A lot closer to playing like men than little boys tonight.”

To be clear, LSU effort on Tuesday was a long way from perfect. The Tigers walked four batters, hit another and threw two wild pitches in the first three innings. Replay overturned another error and another hit batsman. Zach Yorke was thrown out at third base for the first out of the inning. Jake Brown and Seth Dardar both struck out with runners at second and third in the second inning.

With all of that, LSU still rallied behind two huge bullpen efforts and a pair of homers to win the game. Johnson has an incredibly high standard, and in a game that feature so many mistakes by his team, he was genuinely happy with the response.

“Phenomenal. Much better than we have,” Johnson said. “That’s going to be important. We’re playing in that game 30 times in a row. That’s what’s coming up. And Tuesdays everybody is coming here making it the seventh game of the World Series, and we’ve earned that. So, you have to be at your best…we’ve just got to keep growing so we can handle everything that’s coming our way.”

Johnson gave the team an extra hour of sleep on Wednesday. Practice was moved from noon to 1:00 p.m.

It is spring break, after all.