Offense? Hello?
If you’re reading this, then congratulations you scored as many runs as the LSU offense did today.
The Tigers quest for a 13th SEC Tournament title will have to wait another year as the Rebels of Ole Miss eliminated LSU in the semifinal round 2-0 Saturday afternoon at the Hoover Met. For the first time all season, LSU was held scoreless and the Tiger offense produced a season-low two hits.
As much as we’ve wrung our hands over LSU’s lack lack of trusted arms outside its top-four of Kade Anderson, Anthony Eyanson, Zac Cowan, and Casan Evans, the Tiger pitching was more than good enough to get them to tomorrow’s championship game.
Jaden Noot got the start for LSU and was pretty effective. Noot ended up going four innings and gave up both of Ole Miss’s runs, though only one was charged to him. Noot allowed three hits and walked a pair, but also struck out seven. All in all, not a bad outing at all from Noot and he’s emerging as a guy you could count on to start a Tournament game after Anderson and Eyanson have pitched.
Chase Shores and Jacob Mayers pitched the final five innings of Saturday’s game, and neither allowed a hit. Shores did walk three, but he once again is proving to be effective coming out of the pen; you’ll take 2.2 innings of scoreless work every time. The same goes for Mayers who retired all seven batters that he faced.
The problem, obviously, is LSU’s inability to hit. In two games in Hoover, the Tigers produced a total of four runs and six hits, and no runs came over LSU’s final 14 innings. Will the bats wake up next weekend when the NCAA Tournament starts and the Tigers are back home in Alex Box? Probably. And at the risk of looking ahead, do we think another team is going to come into Baton Rouge and beat LSU two out of three times in a Super Regional? Probably not, especially when LSU hasn’t lost a weekend at home all season long. But what will this team look like if/when they get to Omaha? Time will only tell.
In the here and now, however, all LSU can do is wait out the decision of the selection committee. The Tigers are going to be a top-8 seed, the only questions are 1) how highly seeded will they be, 2) who will they be hosting for the Baton Rouge Regional, and 3) who will they be paired with.
Sunday night the NCAA will announce the 16 host sites beginning at 7:30 P.M. The sites will be announced on ESPN’s Bottom Line and through the NCAA’s social media accounts. The field at large including regional pairings will be announced Monday May 29 at 11:00 A.M. with the Selection Show over on ESPN2.