By Hunt Palmer
Wednesday night’s game won’t feel like just any other midweek game.
And it’s not.
LSU and Dallas Baptist will face off at Globe Life Field, home of the Texas Rangers. In all likelihood, this will end up a Quadrant 1 game for both teams.
Dallas Baptist has built a consistently strong program under Dan Heefner. The Patriots have been a regional team every year since 2014 and reached a super regional in 2021. Only five teams have reached the NCAA Tournament each of the last 10 years—Florida, LSU, Oklahoma State, Vanderbilt and Dallas Baptist.
More importantly for LSU, DBU has been a top 50 RPI team at season’s end four years in a row.
That qualifies at Quadrant 1 come Selection Monday.
Currently DBU is ranked in all five polls, the highest being No. 17 by NCBWA and Perfect Game. They enter the game 6-1 with sweeps over North Dakota State and SIU-Edwardsville.
LSU has rebounded the last two games from a sluggish offensive portion of last weekend.
Steven Milam is 5-for-6 with a home run and five runs driven in since he popped up with the tying run at third in the ninth on Saturday.
Jared Jones crushed the ball on Monday night, and Derek Curiel continues to hit.
Playing in a big league ballpark will be a cool experience for both teams, and this one could hold a little bit of weight in June.
HOMEGROWN HITTERS
I’m not sure why, but I expected to see a ton of transfers on the DBU roster. It feels like the kind of program that would pillage low-major conference rosters because of their reputation as a postseason team.
That’s not the case. DBU’s best five bats early in the season are three homegrown products and a pair of JUCO pieces. That’s the old school way.
Grant Jay has crushed the ball in the early going. He’s hitting a sizzling .571 in seven games with three homers and 13 driven in. The junior catcher hit all three homers in the last two games of this past weekend’s series against SIU-E.
Tom Poole is a JUCO transfer in his third year at DBU. He led CUSA in on base percentage last year and ranked third in slugging. He’s got a .625 on base percentage early this year and leads the team with four stolen bases. He also leads the nation in runs scored.
Joey Nerat is a junior outfielder in his third year at DBU. He’s hitting .450 early on.
It’s an old team that has won a ton of games together.
GIANT KILLERS
DBU loves to play power conference teams in the midweek, and they generally play them well. Heefner has won 18 games against the top 10 while at DBU. LSU currently ranks No. 2.
The Patriots are a respectable 31-43 against the SEC since 2004.
WARE ‘EM OUT
This feels like the second straight midweek start for Conner Ware.
The JUCO southpaw started against Southern last week and fired three shutout innings with two strikeouts and a walk. He’s stretched out and can absolutely give LSU three to five innings depending on pitch count.
LSU’s luxury is that the Tigers can really pitch this thing any way they’d like.
William Schmidt is unavailable. As is Gavin Guidry. You wouldn’t expect to see any of the presumed weekend starters. Everyone else should be ready to go.
In Jay Johnson’s mind, his best arm, Kade Anderson, is going Friday with a pitch count likely north of 90. That means he can be as aggressive as he’d like deploying his bullpen on Wednesday night.
Mavrick Rizy, Casan Evans and Connor Benge, the DBU transfer, seem like likely candidates for some work. Cooper Williams and Zac Cowan also likely have multi-inning capability.
The game is being streamed on FloSports. First pitch is set for 7:00. Baton Rouge listeners can hear the broadcast on Eagle 98.1.
