Short starts plaguing Tiger pitching staff in SEC play

March 8, 2026: during NCAA Baseball action between the Sacramento State Hornets and the LSU Tigers at the Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge, LA. Michael Bacigalupi

By Hunt Palmer

Part of starting pitching is run prevention. Part of it is eating outs.

LSU’s 2025 version did both jobs for much of the season. This group hasn’t replaced that, and it’s strained the bullpen over the course of seven conference weekends.

Kade Anderson and Anthony Eyanson combined to complete six innings in 8-of-20 (40%) of their SEC starts last season. Casan Evans did it once against Tennessee for a total of nine 6-plus inning starts in SEC play. That’s 30 percent of league games. Only once in 10 weeks did both fall short of completing six innings. LSU was swept that weekend at Auburn.

Evans, William Schmidt, Cooper Moore and three spot starters have combined to finish the sixth inning in three of 21 (14%) SEC games. Evans has accounted for all three. That means four times LSU has gone the entire weekend without a six-inning start.

LSU starters this year are averaging about 12 innings per weekend or 4 innings per start. Last year, Anderson and Eyanson averaged about 12 innings per weekend. Toss in the Chase Shores, Evans and Conner Ware outings, and LSU averaged 15 innings per weekend from the starters.

That may not sound like a big difference, but consider it over 10 weeks. Three innings per weekend means 30 innings over the course of a conference season. Thirty innings is an eternity of baseball without your best pitchers on the mound.

Evans and Schmidt have not been knocked all over the ballpark. They’ve limited damage in many instances. They just haven’t often lasted long enough. Consider these lines:

EVANS

7.2 IP, 0 ER vs OU

6 IP, 4 ER vs UK

5.2 IP, 3 ER @ Tenn

6 IP, 3 ER @ Ole Miss

SCHMIDT

4 IP, 3 ER @ Vandy

4 IP, 1 ER vs OU

5.1 IP, 0 ER vs UK

5.2 IP, 2 ER @ Tenn

3.2 IP, 4 ER @ Ole Miss

4 IP, 2 ER @ MSU

All of that is just fine, but other than Evans’s 7.2 against Oklahoma, none of it just plows through innings.

When the autopsy of this season is done in full, starting pitching will not be among the chief problems LSU ran into. The injuries to Moore and Evans have been massively impactful, though. Asking a bullpen for 23 innings of work like LSU did in Starkville is just an unsustainable way to approach a weekend.

College baseball teams often ride the backs of their rotation horses. This LSU team hasn’t been able to climb in the saddle.