By Andrew Riedell
There is no way of putting this off... LSU struggled in their first real test of the season. The Tigers dropped two out of three in their first SEC away series of the year to the Texas Longhorns.
I think last weekend told us alot about both teams but LSU has a short turnaround, as they welcome the Mississippi State Bulldogs into Alex Box Stadium tonight for a classic Thursday-Friday-Saturday SEC weekend.
LSU struggled putting away Texas hitters late last weekend and some bullpen mismanagement from Jay Johnson on Friday showed some concern for this LSU pitching staff. On the hitting side of things this LSU team will be fine as they displayed that on Tuesday in their midweek victory over UL-Lafayette (Justice for Cajunomics). Let's breakdown what the Tigers need to do to come out this weekend victorious over the Bulldogs.
First off the pitching matchups this weekend will look something like this:
Thursday: Evan Siary (Mississippi State) 0-0, 2.25 ERA, 15 Ks, vs Kade Anderson (LSU), 5-0, 2.65 ERA, 56 Ks
Friday: Pico Kohn, 4-0, 2.52 ERA, 53 Ks, vs Anthony Eyanson 3-0, 4.50 ERA, 46 Ks
Saturday: Karson Ligon 2-3, 4.76 ERA, 32 Ks, vs Chase Shores 4-1, 4.88 ERA, 30 Ks
Mississippi State switches up their rotation due to the short week, opting to have Pico Kohn (who has dealt with some arm injuries in the past) stick in his Friday role to give him his full rest. I think if Mississippi State has a chance to take any of these three games it is Friday with Kohn on the mound.
LSU hitting though has shown they can compete with even some of the top lefties in the SEC, as they hit Jared Spencer and Luke Harrison from Texas around last weekend. I believe that LSU needs a great weekend from both their starters and bullpen to show the SEC last weekend was just a fluke and they are still one of the top pitching staffs in the country.
I believe Kade Anderson is going to dominate this Mississippi State lineup, but whoever follows him must be able to do the same as well. Some key guys that Jay Johnson has mentioned are going to be key parts of this bullpen, such as William Schimdt, Mavrick Rizy, and Connor Benge, have really struggled in the last couple of weeks . It feels like the two guys you can ultimately trust from this LSU bullpen right now are Casan Evans and Zac Cowan.
On the hitting side, the lineup is finally coming into form, with DH and 3b still being switched off due to matchups. The top three hitters in the LSU lineup might be one of the best trios in the SEC. Derek Curiel works such great at-bats that you have to question if this kid really is a freshman. It feels like this LSU offense ran out of gas on Sunday and just ran into a scolding hot Texas team, that got all the momentum back in this series and was not gonna give it back up.
We won't have to wait long now to see how this one is going to shake out.
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