By Hunt Palmer
LSU has lost back-to-back conference series for the first time since early April of 2024.
The Tigers have lost three straight weekends. That has to stop.
Kentucky visits Alex Box Stadium for the first time since the 2023 Super Regional beginning on Friday. The Cats are ranked No. 19 and are 20-4 on the season. They’ve split the two conference weekends but swept Alabama in the opener for a 4-2 league mark.
Nick Mingione’s team plays with an identity that probably keeps Kentucky from being a player on the national scene but certainly makes them competitive week in and week out in the nation’s toughest conference.
STARTER SITUATION
Kentucky will send its most talented arm to the mound on Friday night in Jaxon Jelkin. He’s a 6-foot-5, slender right hander with a heavy sinking fastball that sits about 95 mph. He throws it a ton and gets a lot of ground balls. He got 21 outs last week in Oxford, and 10 were on the ground. Six were punchouts. Alabama got the barrel to the bottom half of the baseball for a pair of homers off Jelkin two weeks ago, but when he’s on, it’s a lot of ground balls.
The Cats do not trust their Sunday starter, Ben Cleaver. He was their best arm last year. He made 15 starts and pitched to a 3.25 ERA. This year, he hasn’t recorded an out in the fifth inning through six weeks. At Alabama, he didn’t make it out of the first. Cleaver’s fastball never hits 90 mph. His curveball is a big bender.
Nate Harris will move into the Saturday spot where Cleaver had been positioned. Through two weeks, he’s thrown nine innings and allowed seven runs on five hits including a homer. He’s struck out seven and walked five.
Behind Jelkin’s velocity, this is a below average starting rotation. The Wildcats have the ninth ranked ERA in the SEC.
BUNT AND RUN
Mingione’s teams generally play the same.
They don’t hit for much power. This group is 15th in the SEC in homers. They bunt a lot. This team leads the SEC in sacrifice bunts. They run. They’re second in the SEC in stolen bases. They get hit by pitches. They’re tied for the conference lead.
That’s the style.
LSU is going to have to throw the ball over the plate, catch the ball and throw accurately. And quickly.
Ethan Hindle and Tyler Bell are power threats. Bell, who injured his shoulder on Opening Day a lot like Tommy White in 2023, is a potential top 20 pick in the MLB Draft. Beyond those two, it’s a station-to-station bunch.
LSU’s defense has been very poor. It’s likely that Zach Yorke and John Pearson are in the lineup beginning on Friday. That’s not an elite defensive group on the corners to be fielding a lot of bunts.
The best way to help those guys is going to be retiring leadoff men so the bunt becomes less of a factor.
SOPHOMORE STUDS
This weekend needs to be the one the rights the ship. If that’s going to happen, Casan Evans and William Schmidt have the be the lead dogs. LSU could really, really use 12 or 13 innings from those two guys. That obviously helps on Friday and Saturday. but it makes Sunday a heck of a lot easier as well considering LSU is likely to use a host of arms in that game.
If the Oklahoma Evans and the Dartmouth Schmidt show up, LSU could be in business. If things go sideways this weekend, it gets dicey.
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