Who to Throw? How LSU has handled regionals since 2008
05/31/2025
By Hunt Palmer
The talk this week was about how LSU should navigate this Baton Rouge Regional with its pitching staff.
Anthony Eyanson got the ball in the opener. Was that the right call? Should it have been Jaden Noot?
Eyanson was magnificent against the Trojans, delivering 7.2 innings of shutout ball while allowing just five hits, striking out seven and walking just one against the four-seed Little Rock. That saved Kade Anderson for a winner’s bracket game Saturday night against Dallas Baptist.
Ant put on a show in his first regional 😤@AnthonyEyanson | #ThePowerhouse pic.twitter.com/tnJpRp6g0E
— LSU Baseball (@LSUbaseball) May 31, 2025
LSU cleared the first hurdle, but the Tigers are two wins away from knowing if the risk paid off.
There are two schools of thought:
- The Friday game is the “easiest” game you play, win it with as little as possible
- Throwing a top two arm Friday is the best chance of winning the game and saving the bullpen.
I don’t find either “incorrect.” I would not have thrown Paul Skenes or any clear-cut ace in the first game. That is my only true gripe.
In terms of how LSU stands in the 2025 regional, I find it extremely advantageous. The Tigers have Anderson, Zac Cowan, Casan Evans, Chase Shores and Jaden Noot ready to fire Saturday to do whatever it takes to beat Dallas Baptist who also has a host of arms ready. Would it be “better” to have Eyanson ready for Sunday? Sure. But four one seeds lost on Friday, and Vanderbilt dodged a Wright State bullet with its ace on the mound. It’s not an exact science.
Here’s a review of how LSU has handled game one of a regional as the No. 1 seed and how it’s worked out.
2008
LSU was a national seed having won 20 straight games. Paul Maineiri threw No. 3 starter Jordan Brown against Texas Southern. LSU won the game 12-1 and had ace Jared Bradford ready for the winners’ bracket game against Southern Miss. He was great, and No. 2 starter Blake Martin closed the regional out the next night. It was as smooth as a regional can be played. LSU won the three games by a combined score of 36-9.
2009
LSU faced Southern in the Friday game. Austin Ross got the ball. He was clearly LSU’s third arm that year behind Anthony Ranaudo and Louis Coleman. Ross threw a few Saturdays if Coleman was used in relief on Friday nights, but he was the No. 3 option. LSU got into a dogfight with Southern on Friday. Ranaudo was great Saturday in an extra-inning win. Coleman slammed the door on Minnesota on Sunday night.
2012
LSU drew ULM as the No. 4 seed. Freshman Aaron Nola had become the No. 2 arm over Ryan Eades. He pitched game one of the Stony Brook Super Regional the next weekend. Kevin Gausman, as a sophomore, was the ace. Nola got the ball versus ULM and threw it brilliantly over eight one-run innings. LSU won 4-1, and Gausman dominated Oregon State in a 7-1 win on Saturday night. Eades threw Sunday in the close out game, and LSU needed a tying run in the ninth and a winning run in the 10th to win 6-5 and advance.
2013
Another SWAC champion came to Baton Rouge in 2013. Jackson State was the draw, and LSU threw No. 3 Ryan Eades. The caveat here is that Cody Glenn was suspended and unavailable. He was the No. 2 who got the ball in LSU’s second College World Series game. Aaron Nola threw the Saturday night game, a masterpiece after a disastrous first against Sam Houston State. Brent Bonvillain took the ball Sunday night against ULL and was excellent in a clinching win.
2014
Freshman Jared Poche made a living in the Friday regional game. That started his freshman season of 2014. He was the No. 2 starter and was awesome against Southeastern Louisiana in a Friday win. Aaron Nola dominated Houston the next night to put LSU in the driver’s seat. Kyle Bouman got the ball on Sunday night against the Cougars and was brilliant. He threw six shutout innings. However, Houston got four in the seventh off Kurt McCune and one in the 11th of Joe Broussard to stun LSU and end Nola’s sensational career.
2015
This was truly a “pitch off” year. Alden Cartwright started against Lehigh, and LSU used seven arms to win. Alex Lange and Poche then through 17.2 shutout over the next two days, and LSU beat UNC-Wilmington 2-0 on consecutive nights to win the regional.
2016
Poche was back in action as the Friday starter for the third time. He threw 92 pitches in a 7-1 win over Utah Valley. He came back Monday and saved the season with six one-hit, shutout innings out of the bullpen against Rice. LSU won that game 5-2.
2017
This was Poche’s swan song as the regional opener. He did it three times as the No. 2 starter. Once behind Nola and twice behind Alex Lange. He wasn’t great, allowing seven hits and five runs, only one earned, in 4.1 innings, but LSU scored 10 unanswered on Texas Southern, the SWAC champs, to win 15-7. Lange beat Southeastern on Saturday, and Eric Walker threw eight shutout innings against Rice on Sunday night to close out the regional. This was truly the only season LSU had three cemented, high-level starters. That makes throwing your No. 2 much, much easier.
2019
This season was unique. Zack Hess began the season as a weekend started but elected to go back to the bullpen in his draft year. Cole Henry was an ace but missed a month with arm issues. What was left was freshman Ma’Khail Hilliard, scuffling veteran Eric Walker and freshman Landon Marceaux. Stony Brook was the four seed, and Marceaux got the ball. He beat the Seawolves, and Henry returned from injury to win the Saturday night game against Southern Miss, 8-4. Walker worked into the fifth on Sunday night as LSU beat the Golden Eagles again 6-4.
2023
LSU started their ace for the first time since Ben Sheets came to Baton Rouge with ULM in the old six-team regionals. Paul Skenes threw a complete game against Tulane. Ty Floyd and Thatcher Hurd combined to beat Oregon State in a rain-riddled mess of a weekend. Riley Cooper started the Monday night clincher. He worked into the fourth and gave way to Nate Ackenhausen, Griffin Herring and Gavin Guidry to put the Beavers away for good.
OVERVIEW
The biggest point here is that LSU is 10-0 in these Friday games and 9-1 in the actual regionals. The only loss was 2014, and LSU got an outstanding start in that Sunday game against Houston, but the bullpen coughed it up. Any was LSU has done it–No. 2, No. 3, ace or well down-the-line, it has worked out just fine.
More often than not, the No. 2 arm has thrown. That was the case in:
2012: Nola (Gausman)
2014: Poche (Nola)
2016: Poche (Lange)
2017: Poche (Lange)
2019: Marceaux (Henry)
LSU won all of those regionals but one. Poche did save the season in 2016 by coming back on Monday. That can either be an indictment of using your No. 2 so you lose on Sunday and fall behind Monday or an endorsement because Poche was then available on Monday.
The Tigers pitched a No. 3 in 2008 and 2009 and went way down the line in 2015 with Cartwright. He had started games, but that was a Lange-Poche-Figure-it-out team. The 2013 team had a suspension to deal with, and the 2019 staff was a mess toward the end.
The combined scores of those 10 1 vs. 4 Friday games is 101-31, meaning LSU scores an average of 10.1 runs per game, and the opponent scores 3.1. Only once has LSU been held under seven runs (4 vs. ULM in 2012 when freshman Nola threw). That, of course, doesn’t include Friday’s win over Little Rock when LSU scored seven on the number. And LSU is 28-0 all-time in regional openers. That includes four-team and six-team regionals.
I still contend that LSU has not been in the situation presented in 2025 in decades. Kade Anderson and Anthony Eyanson are truly co-aces. This year is, however, similar to the others (outside of 2017) in that LSU doesn’t have a solidified No. 3 starter.
It’s an evergreen debate that won’t soon find a winner. All that really matters is that LSU does what it has in 24 of 27 previous home regionals–advance.