By Hunt Palmer
Chase Shores may not have envisioned his LSU career unfolding exactly as it has, but he dreamt of Sunday.
The hard-throwing Texan blew a 100 mph fastball by West Virginia’s last chance and punched LSU’s ticket to the College World Series.
“Dream come true, honestly,” Shores said of the moment. “It was just a great feeling having my teammates run up and start hugging me. It was an amazing feeling. I’ll never forget that in my life…I just screamed let’s go to Omaha like 50 times in a row.”
For Shores, it’s back to Omaha where he looked on from the dugout in 2023. Once an integral part of the Tiger bullpen as a freshman, he was lost for the season due to a torn UCL he suffered striking out future All-American Christian Moore from Tennessee.
He recalls the 2023 trip fondly but is excited to play an on-field role this time on the sport’s biggest stage.
That role has changed over the course of the season. Shores began the year as LSU’s No. 3 starter but was moved to the bullpen after a shaky few weeks in SEC play.
Shores allowed 15 earned runs on 22 hits in his first five SEC starts. His longest outing was five innings on a brutally frigid and windy day at Oklahoma.
After a two-inning start at Auburn where he allowed three earned runs on three hits and a pair of walks, Shores was ticketed for a relief role. His first outing out of the bullpen was rough, too. Alabama tagged him for four runs in 2.2 innings.
But he soon found a groove. He only allowed four earned runs over his next seven appearances which totaled 12.2 innings.
“I think it’s been good,” Shores said. “I think coming out of the bullpen you’ve got to be ready from the get-go. I think that’s kind of helped me. When I was starting, maybe I was trying to groove into things and kind of feel things out. Coming out of the bullpen, you’ve got to be ready first pitch. I think the intent has gotten better, and the strikes have gotten better, too.”
So has the velocity.
Shores reached 102 mph at the SEC Tournament in a stellar 2.2 inning outing against Ole Miss. He didn’t allow a hit. Lighting up the radar gun like that grabs the attention of the entire stadium. Shores admits he takes a look at the radar readings, too.
“Sometimes,” he said with a grin. “I need to do a better job of not doing that. My dad and my advisor told me, ‘you’ve got to stop looking at the radar gun.’ I’m just curious sometimes. My advisor made a deal with me. ‘You can only look if it’s a strikeout’. So, that’s what I’m going to start doing.”
Shores had the good fastball on Sunday night in the super regional clincher.
As he watched from the dugout, head coach Jay Johnson was seeing what he envisioned three years ago in north Texas.
“That was electric,” Johnson said. “Holy cow. Obviously, you’re in the moment. We’re four outs away. We’re three outs away. We’re two outs away. That’s human nature. But I actually was able to peel back from that for a second, and the vision of recruiting him here, like, that’s what it was.”
As much as Shores’s eye-popping ability can impress, the mental maturity to handle something of a demotion and then adversity in the regional round against Little Rock impressed Johnson.
“I thought he used the previous week really well,” Johnson said. “He had a really good week leading into (the super regional). I thought his demeanor going into this weekend was great. I thought it was really cool that he was the one who got to finish that.”
Little Rock scored four earned runs on Shores with the benefit of one single hit in the regional. The free bases bit.
“Just throwing strikes. That’s the biggest thing for me,” Shores said. “If I can get it in the zone, I’ll be well off. Against Little Rock, I walked the bases loaded. That can never happen. I learned from that.”
Now Shores gets to board the plane to Omaha for a second time. This time he’ll be able to contribute on the mound. He may be asked to close a game, bridge the middle innings or even start. The College World Series has a way of necessitating pitchers to take on different types of roles given the amount of play in a condensed time.
“We’re in Omaha. I’ll go until my arm falls off,” Shores said. “I don’t have a pitch count or anything. Whatever Coach Johnson needs me to do, I’ll go out there and get the job done.”
Shores said he sees parallels between this 2025 team and the 2023 champs. He’s hoping the end result is the same.
“I think we have all the pieces,” Shores said. “The hard work we put in in the fall and in the spring. The schedule we played has gotten us ready for Omaha competition. I think we’re as prepared as any team in the country to go win a national championship.”
More LSU Sports
