By Hunt Palmer
LSU painted itself into a corner on Thursday.
Kade Anderson and Anthony Eyanson stepped forward and probably pitched LSU to a national seed on Friday and Saturday. That’s LSU’s strength as a team, and it flexed one more time over the weekend.
The Tigers are 8-2 in their last 10 games with those two on the mound. Over those 10 games, the duo has combined for this linescore: 65IP, 49H, 18R, 18ER, 24BB, 102K, 2.49ERA.
That’s dominance.
This is the best 1-2 punch I’ve watched at LSU, and that’s the reason LSU is going to be a brutal out over the next three weeks.
Eyanson didn’t have pinpoint control Saturday like he has the last month. Still, he missed enough barrels and toughed his way through seven innings. Anderson featured his dominant stuff for nine strikeouts. It was the first time he’s fallen short of 10 since the Auburn series six weeks ago.
There’s not a duo in the country pitching better.
COWAN CAVING
Zac Cowan couldn’t close the door on Thursday. LSU was 15-1 in the first 16 games he pitched in. The Tigers are 1-3 in the last four. He was on the mound when the winning runs scored twice at Texas A&M, and he gave up a two-run lead Thursday at South Carolina.
No pitcher is perfect, but the timing of those two outings can raise some eyebrows.
I did not mind either of the Texas A&M outings. He made some quality pitches that got hit. It happens. Thursday night he got tattooed.
Henry Kaczmar’s triple in the eighth was on a terrible hanging changeup above the belt. Same story with KJ Scobey’s homer in the ninth. Jace Woita’s triple that followed was on a 3-0 fastball up. All of these pitches were very poor.
This has nothing to do with teams figuring Cowan out or his lack of velocity. He made bad pitches, and those get hit. Cowan has been awesome all season, and he’s still LSU’s closer. We’re one week removed from three brilliant innings in a win over Arkansas.
He just needs to execute much better than he did Thursday.
ARMS EMERGING
Chase Shores has found a groove. And Jaden Noot deserves high-leverage innings.
That’s my biggest takeaway from the non-Anderson/Eyanson/Evans/Cowan crew.
Shores is working exclusively from the stretch and throwing more strikes with that sinking 98 mph fastball. Deep into the season, SEC hitters were hitting north of .300 against him. He’s only allowed eight hits in his last 10.1 innings. Over that time, he’s got eight strikeouts and three walks.
He’s obviously stretched out and capable of giving the Tigers 12 outs at a time. He can be used in a spot start if necessary.
Same can be said for Noot who was excellent on Thursday. He got out of the mess Conner Ware made by walking three hitters to open the second. He retired 12 hitters in a row before he ran out of gas. For the season, Noot has 34 strikeouts and 11 walks.
He’s got plenty of heat on the fastball, and his changeup/splitter has really emerged as an out pitch.
The search for bullpen depth has been a season-long process. Right now, Shores and Noot are likely the names behind Cowan and Evans.
BREAKING OUT
It was awesome to see Steven Milam and Derek Curiel hit the ball hard all day on Saturday.
Milam was hitting an even .200 in 29 SEC games before his 2-for-4 day on Saturday. Curiel was 4-for-33 (.121) over eight games. He collected three sharp hits on Saturday.
Those two guys are among the most talented bats on the roster, and if LSU is going to make a run at this thing, they’ll need to get huge hits.
DANDY DEFENSE
In 30 SEC games, LSU fielded better than .984. That’s elite stuff. Steven Milam, Michael Braswell and Daniel Dickinson combined to make four errors in SEC play.
That just doesn’t happen in college baseball.
Defense is rarely spoken about in a positive context because routine plays are expected to be made. All too often, they aren’t in the college game. LSU has avoided that to this point, and that’s a huge positive moving forward.
BEWARE OF BEAR
Jared Jones made some history this weekend. He passed Dylan Crews and Trey McClure on the all-time home run list. If you pass Crews in anything, I’ll pay attention. Jones was 6-for-13 on the weekend with three homers and five driven in. And he only struck out twice.
He changes the LSU offense when he’s locked in.
Jones has enjoyed a brilliant career, but he came back for one reason—Omaha.
If he swings the bat like he did this weekend, LSU will probably get there.
