LSU baseball is off to an 8-0 start, and even though that represents only about 14-percent of the schedule, hope is in large supply at the Box.
It should be.
The Tigers have an offensive lineup that looks the part of a powerhouse. Three hitters that are over .333 thru multiple starts are trying to push their way into the lineup. That is not counting the starting left fielder, who is nursing a fluke hand injury.
LSU can stack it against righties or lefties by inserting players at at least three different positions. The shortstop only has to switch sides at the plate.
On the mound, Jay Johnson has marched nineteen(!) different hurlers out to see what they have. While it hasn’t been perfect, that number should whittle down by a little less than half before SEC play starts.
So, what to make of the hot start? It is not unexpected at all, but it has been impressive. Half the games have been run ruled, and the victory against Kent St. looked that much better after the Golden Flashes took two of three from Tennessee in Knoxville over the weekend.
Great starts don’t guarantee anything, but they sure do make things easier. Rough starts don’t kill the season, but they make for more anxious moments.
Since LSU got into the business of winning National Championships in 1991, the Tigers have catapulted from some hot starts all the way to the title.
In 1996, LSU won their first 14, taking them two games into conference play. The next year, the Tigers won 19 in a row to start the season, still a program record. Both teams won it all.
Jay Johnson has piloted two National Championship teams. In 2023, his Tigers went into SEC play at 16-1. Two seasons later they did it one better, starting league games with a 17-1 mark.
Skip Bertman’s first two title teams were good, but not great, in February and early March. The 1991 Tigers opened 16-6, and two years later, the 1993 champs were 15-4 when SEC play began.
Paul Mainieri’s 2009 champions were 11-3 before they began playing conference games, but included a home series loss to Illinois. That series felt like an aberration, and turned out it was, although at the time it ramped up the nervousness just a touch.
But that was a walk in the park compared to 2000. Bertman’s final championship team was 11-6 after seventeen games. That included a five-game losing streak, a Houston sweep at Alex Box, and a series loss to Georgia that snapped a 16 series home winning streak in SEC play.
That March, Tiger fans were way more excited about men’s basketball. Seriously.
They turned it around, of course. When Brad Cresse drove Ryan Theriot home at Rosenblatt Stadium that June for the National Championship, nobody cared about the early trials of that season.
Unfortunately, that can work both ways. At least four LSU teams could make a claim that they should have won it all. Two of them started on fire, but none hoisted a flag in June.
In 2013 and 2015, LSU started 16-1 before conference play. Each of those teams had first round picks both at the plate and on the mound. The 2015 team won the SEC regular season title, and the 2013 squad won the league tournament. Both made it to Omaha. Their combined record was 111-23.
But neither won the National Championship. Some uncharacteristic defensive lapses and a couple of bad matchups did those Tigers in. They were a combined 1-4 in those two College World Series.
In 2017, LSU opened a respectable 13-5, went 21-9 in SEC play, and caught fire in Omaha, pushing all the way to the finals. But the Tigers caught some awful luck when freshman pitcher Eric Walker, who had started every turn that season, was lost after suffering a season-ending injury in his first start at the CWS. Walker, who had pitched to an ERA of 1.95 in his previous four starts, lasted only two innings against Oregon St before he blew out his elbow.
The ultimate bad luck story came in 1998 when LSU was stymied by, of all things, the weather.
It would be the end of the Gorilla Ball era, though we didn’t know it at the time. LSU blasted 157 homers that season. Trey McClure hit 27, Eddy Furniss 28, and Brad Cresse 29. How’s that for Murders Row?
The Tigers scored 22 runs in their first two games, setting multiple CWS records for homers along the way. Omaha was warm, and the ball was jumping.
Then, while waiting for the losers bracket to clear up, everything changed. It was unseasonably cool when the Tigers returned to the Blatt, and the wind was blowing in.
LSU’s season died at the warning track, as they scored only 7 runs over the next two games against USC.
That Saturday, the warm weather returned, and the Trojans beat Arizona State, and ace Ryan Mills, 21-14 for the National Title.
LSU might still be batting in that game.
That offseason the minus 5 bats were outlawed, and Gorilla Ball went into hibernation while the NCAA fiddled with the equipment over the next decade and a half.
So how they start is important, but how they finish is crucial.
It should be a fun ride.
