Tag: Jay Johnson

LSU baseball falls at home in Game 1 against Auburn

The Tigers’ comeback effort fell short as they sit in a 0-1 hole against Auburn.

LSU entered Thursday night’s series opener against the Auburn Tigers riding a three-game winning streak after it beat the Florida Gators twice in Gainesville and then shellacked UL-Monroe 15-4 on Tuesday.

It seemed that the Tigers were starting to figure things out under first-year coach [autotag]Jay Johnson[/autotag], but that progress was interrupted against Auburn as they fell 6-5 despite a late comeback bid.

[autotag]Blake Money[/autotag] got the start on the mound for Game 1 of the weekend series against AU, and LSU started things off right with a [autotag]Cade Doughty[/autotag] homer in the bottom of the first to take the early lead in a battle between SEC West foes.

Things remained quiet until [autotag]Hayden Travinski[/autotag] continued his hot streak with his own solo home run in the bottom of the fourth inning to make it 2-0 LSU.

However, it all fell apart in the top of the fifth.

With bases loaded and two outs, Auburn got a two-RBI single on a ball that bounced over Tre Morgan’s head at first. That tied the game 2-2. The next batter hit a three-run home run, and in the blink of an eye, it was 5-2 Auburn.

It scored again on an error by Doughty to make it 6-2 for the wrong Tigers heading to the bottom of the inning. In the bottom of the eighth inning, LSU was able to cut into the Auburn lead as [autotag]Brayden Jobert[/autotag] blasted a two-run shot to right field to make it 6-4.

In the bottom of the ninth, LSU scored a run on a sacrifice fly by [autotag]Dylan Crews[/autotag] to cut the lead to 6-5 with Morgan standing on second base as the tying run, but [autotag]Jacob Berry[/autotag] struck out for out No. 2.

In stepped [autotag]Jordan Thompson[/autotag] with a chance to tie or win the game, and he flew out to right field.

LSU will play Game 2 against Auburn tomorrow with the first pitch scheduled for 6:30 p.m. CT at Alex Box Stadium.

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Breaking down the 5 LSU teams that have undergone coaching changes since 2020

Each of LSU’s major sports has undergone coaching transitions in the last two years. Let’s take a look at all of them.

Since August 2020, what could be considered LSU’s five major sports have all undergone coaching changes.

Those five sports are football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball, and gymnastics.

The situations leading to each change were wildly different, and sometimes not even in the same stratosphere. Nonetheless, the changes did occur and the athletic department looks a whole lot different than it did when 2020 began.

Gymnastics was the first to transition and also the most seamless, when [autotag]D-D Breaux[/autotag] retired, associate head coach [autotag]Jay Clark[/autotag] was tabbed to assume the head position.

Next, in what was the most impressive hire, [autotag]Kim Mulkey[/autotag] came to LSU after building a dynasty at Baylor. Not long after that, [autotag]Jay Johnson[/autotag] was hired to helm the baseball program after the retirement of [autotag]Paul Mainieri[/autotag].

I doubt many people need refreshers on what happened in football or men’s basketball, given how dramatic and high-profile each situation was, but [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] took over after a wild conclusion to the [autotag]Ed Orgeron[/autotag] era. Most recently, [autotag]Matt McMahon[/autotag] was hired after the [autotag]Will Wade[/autotag] saga came to an inevitable ending.

With all five coaches now in place, let’s take a look back at each transition, and where each sport stands going forward.

Gators take a bite out of LSU baseball in Game 1

The Tigers started off their weekend series against Florida with a rough outing on Friday.

Coming off of Wednesday’s heartbreaking loss to Louisiana Tech in 12 innings, the Tigers could use a pick-me-up in the worst way on Friday night against the Florida Gators.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan for coach [autotag]Jay Johnson[/autotag] in a 7-1 blowout loss. [autotag]Blake Money[/autotag] got the start on the mound for LSU as he returned to his usual Friday night role after his injury.

The Gators scored on a pair of solo home runs in the first and the fourth innings to take a 2-0 lead heading into the fifth. That’s when the wheels fell off the Money train. Florida proceeded to score four runs to take a 6-0 lead.

Money was replaced in the top of the sixth inning. His final stat line was five innings pitched, seven hits, six runs, two walks and three strikeouts. Florida scored their final run of the game in the bottom of the sixth when the Gators scored a run on a flyout to make it 7-0.

In the top of the eighth inning, LSU finally got on the board when Dylan Crews scored on a Gavin Dugas groundout to make it 7-1. In the top of the ninth inning, Hayden Travinski hit a solo shot to left field to score the final run of the ball game.

With the loss, LSU drops to 15-7 and 1-3 in conference play. LSU will play game two against Florida tomorrow with the first pitch scheduled for 5:30 p.m CT.

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Tigers going ‘back to the drawing board’ after rough weekend on the mound

LSU coach Jay Johnson said the Tigers are reevaluating pitching ahead of this weekend’s series at Florida.

Last weekend, coach Jay Johnson and the LSU Tigers dropped their first conference series of the season to Texas A&M. One of the major reasons was starting pitching.

Going into the weekend series, only Johnson knew the status of the Tigers’ ace Blake Money after he suffered an injury in the Tulane game. Ty Floyd got the start on the mound for the Friday night game, instead.

A key goal for any starting pitcher is to try and get a “quality start” every time you pitch. Per MLB.com, “a starting pitcher records a quality start when he pitches at least six innings and allows three earned runs or fewer. A starting pitcher has two jobs: to prevent runs and get outs. The quality start statistic helps to quantify which pitchers did a “quality” job in those two departments.”

Out of the three conference games last week, LSU recorded zero quality starts. Floyd pitched for only two innings and gave up two runs, Money pitched 3 1/3 innings and gave up four runs, and Hilliard pitched four innings and gave up five runs.

That is a total of 11 earned runs in only 9 1/3 innings, good for an ERA of 10.88.

That is an abhorrent number for any pitching staff. Those numbers have led coach Johnson to make some changes. The Tigers take on Louisiana Tech on Wednesday before traveling to Florida to take on the No. 8 Gators in Gainesville this weekend.

Something has to give for this pitching staff. According to Johnson, the Tigers are going to go “back to the drawing board” as far as the starting rotation is concerned and re-evaluate every pitcher on the roster to see who can get some quality starts and win some games.

The Tigers currently sit at 15-5 and they are ranked the No. 18 team in the country, but coach Johnson knows this team is capable of playing much better than it is right now.

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Injury update for LSU pitcher Blake Money

The Tigers could be without their ace for at least the near future as the team is set to begin SEC play this weekend.

Blake Money, a 6-foot-7-inch sophomore starting pitcher for the LSU Tigers, has been the ace for the team this year. He’s the Friday night guy.

In his first three starts, he was, as his name suggests, “money.” He carried a 0.44 ERA into last Friday’s game against the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats. In what should have been another quality start for Money, things went horribly wrong.

Money was pulled after only 4.1 innings, in which he gave up five runs on only two hits to the Wildcats. He looked like a completely different pitcher than he had been all season long, which led some to believe that something was wrong.

It turns out that Money has been dealing with what is being referred to as “wrist irritation,” according to coach Jay Johnson.

Any kind of injury to a pitcher’s throwing arm can be very tough to deal with. Since last Friday, Money has been going through treatment to try and heal his wrist, and Johnson said Money is listed as day-to-day.

It is unknown whether he will pitch this weekend or not. LSU opens SEC play with a series against Texas A&M on Friday at Alex Box Stadium.

Getting Money back to 100% as quickly as possible is pivotal for the success of this Tigers team. You are going to need your ace, especially later in the year, and LSU will hope his recovery goes smoothly.

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Michigan State football releases assistant coach salaries

MSU assistant coaches have gotten raises for the 2022 season

The start of football in 2022 is soon upon us as the Spartans are set to kick off spring ball in just a few short weeks. With spring ball starting, the coaching carousel is officially dying down and coaching staffs are being completely solidified across the country.

It appears that Mel Tucker has locked in his staff for the 2022 football season and the Spartans are ready to roll into spring football.

With Tucker’s new contract came an increase in the money available to pay assistant coaches, which Tucker used to increase the salaries of his assistant coaches, and fill the open positions left on his staff.

Find out what each assistant coaches new salary is:

Rough night in Ruston as Tigers drop first game of the season

The Tigers suffered their first setback of the season on the road against Louisiana Tech.

It was a rough night for LSU at J.C. Love Field in Ruston, Louisiana. Both teams entered the game with perfect 3-0 records, but a plethora of walks, bad luck, and errors proved too much for the Tigers to overcome against the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs in an 11-6 loss.

Riley Cooper (0-1) got the start on the mound for LSU. He allowed four runs (three earned) on six hits in two innings with no walks and one strikeout. The Tigers were down 5-0 in the top of the fourth inning when Brayden Jobert hit his third homer of the year to cut the lead to 5-2.

In the top of the fifth, LSU added another run on a Tre Morgan groundout, and in the sixth, Gavin Dugas hit an RBI single to cut the lead to 5-4 headed to the home half of the inning. At that point, it seemed like all of the momentum was favoring LSU and that they would be able to complete the comeback, but then everything went downhill fast.

If it could go wrong for LSU, it did in the bottom of the sixth inning. Louisiana Tech capitalized on three errors and a pair of walks in the bottom of the frame to take a 9-4 lead. They’d add on to that lead in the bottom of the seventh with a two-run homer to make it 11-4.

Gavin Dugas hit a two-run double in the top of the eighth to give LSU some hope, but that’s as close as the Tigers would come to a comeback as they fell 11-6. It was the first time in 25 years that LSU made the trip to Ruston. LSU entered the game with a record of 23-28 in true February road games in franchise history.

“They capitalized on our mistakes; good teams do that, and we’ll do that to teams at times this season,” LSU coach Jay Johnson said in a release. “You like to win these games when mistakes rear their head, but we didn’t, so we’ll work on controlling the ball and we’ll work on having better plate discipline.

“I was pleased with getting down 5-0 getting it back to 5-4; I think that’s a good sign, and I think the energy in the dugout was a positive. I felt like we were engaged in the game, but we’ve got to play baseball better.”

The Tigers will return to the Box this weekend for a four-game series involving both the Towson Tigers and the Southern Jaguars that includes a doubleheader on Sunday.

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LSU remains at No. 8 in D1Baseball Top 25

There was no change for the Tigers after a dominant opening weekend sweep against Maine.

After a phenomenal opening weekend at Alex Box Stadium where the Tigers outscored the Maine Black Bears 51-15 in a three-game sweep, LSU remains at number eight in the D1Baseball Top 25 poll.

There were many expectations coming into the 2022 season, the first at LSU for new head coach Jay Johnson. The Tigers started it off by putting on a show.

Friday was “Money Time” as Blake Money came out and pitched a gem of a game going seven innings while allowing zero runs on two hits and ten strikeouts. The star of the show on offense wasn’t one of the usual suspects, it was the new kid on the block straight out of Junior College, Brayden Jobert.

Jobert finished the game Friday going two-for-two with a homer and two RBI. On Saturday, the bats stayed hot as they rode a streak of scoring a run for 12 straight innings. Two players were one-hit short of a cycle, Crews and Doughty. LSU had 17 runs on 17 hits.

On Sunday, the Tigers stayed golden as Ty Floyd pitched a gem and LSU scored 21 runs, breaking the program record for runs scored in the first three games. The Tigers sit at 3-0 and travel to Louisiana Tech for a one-game series Wednesday Night starting at 6 PM.

Here’s the full D1Baseball poll for this week.

Rank Team Overall Record Record Last Week Previous Rank
1 Texas 3-0 3-0 1
2 Arkansas 2-1 2-1 2
3 Ole Miss 3-0 3-0 5
4 Oklahoma State 2-1 2-1 7
5 Vanderbilt 1-2 1-2 3
6 Stanford 2-1 2-1 6
7 Mississippi State 1-2 1-2 4
8 LSU 3-0 3-0 8
9 NC State 3-0 3-0 10
10 Florida State 3-0 3-0 11
11 Arizona 3-0 3-0 15
12 Long Beach State 2-1 2-1 24
13 Notre Dame 2-1 2-1 13
14 Oregon State 4-0 4-0 18
15 Florida 1-2 1-2 9
16 Georgia 3-0 3-0 16
17 TCU 2-1 2-1 17
18 Tennessee 3-0 3-0 19
19 Georgia Tech 3-0 3-0 21
20 Texas Tech 1-2 1-2 14
21 Liberty 2-1 2-1 NR
22 Maryland 3-0 3-0 NR
23 Duke 2-1 2-1 23
24 Miami 4-0 4-0 25
25 East Carolina 0-3 0-3 12
Dropped Out
UC Irvine 1-2 1-2 20
Dallas Baptist 1-2 1-2 22

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Tigers start the 2022 season strong with a win over Maine

Tigers take the opener behind Blake Money’s seven-inning performance.

Pinstripes, punchouts, and a packed house at Alex Box Stadium. Ah, baseball season is back in the Bayou.

The No. 8 LSU Tigers did NOT disappoint against the Maine Black Bears as the Tigers won 13-1. There were a lot of questions going into the season about how the lineup would look and how the pitching staff would look. The Tigers have plenty of great talent, so it was up to new head coach Jay Johnson to figure out where each piece fit in.

It all started with the opening day first pitch from former Tigers head coach and Hall of Famer, Paul Mainieri. After that, it became the Money show. By that, I mean the Blake Money show.

AP Photo/Matthew Hinton

The 6-foot-7-inch, 235-pound Sophomore came out throwing darts. He pitched 7 innings and gave up two hits, one walk, and 10 strikeouts. It was the first time since Jake Tompkins in 2003 that an opening day starter recorded 10 or more strikeouts.

I know what you’re thinking, “We’ve seen all the posts and the preseason hype around the golden spike award watch lists and preseason All-American hitters. How’d they do?” We’ll get to those guys, but they weren’t the ones that really stole the show on Friday Night.

That title goes to Brayden Jobert.

A man that wasn’t even in the starting lineup made the biggest impact in the batter’s box. Jobert played at Delgado Community College in New Orleans, Louisiana, last year where he earned JUCO All-American honors. There he d batted .386 with 15 doubles, 16 homers, 71 RBI, a .813 slugging percentage, and a .469 on-base percentage.

Who had the first hit of the 2022 season? Who scored the first run of the 2022 season? The answer to both of those questions is Brayden Jobert. He hit a single during his first at-bat and during his second at-bat, he hit a homerun to Right Field. He finished the night 2-for-2 with two RBI, a single, a sac-fly, and a homer. That one run in the fourth inning was all the Tigers needed, but they didn’t stop there. The bats got HOT and the Tigers ended with 13 runs on 12 hits.

Winning Pitcher: Blake Money (1-0)

LSU will play Maine again tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. at “The Box”.

LSU ranked in the top 10 of the USA TODAY Sports preseason coaches poll

Jay Johnson’s squad starts the season in the top 10.

LSU is ranked No. 7 in the 2022 USA TODAY Sports preseason coaches poll, marking the Tigers’ fifth Top 10 appearance in a preseason poll.

LSU’s previously released preseason rankings are No. 3 by Collegiate Baseball, No. 4 by Perfect Game, No. 8 by D1 Baseball, and No. 10 by Baseball America.

The Tigers start the first season of Jay Johnson’s tenure with high rankings and high expectations. This is understandable because a young LSU team made the Super Regionals last year and new head coach Jay Johnson led the Arizona Wildcats to a Pac-12 Championship and the College World Series. With a ton of returning talent and some new talent, expect the Tigers to make some noise in “The Box” this season.

The Tigers have been engaged in preseason training and scrimmages since January 28, and the 2022 season begins at 6:30 p.m. CT on Friday, February 18, when LSU plays host to Maine in Alex Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field.

LSU is one of eight Southeastern Conference teams appearing in the USA Today 2022 preseason Top 25, along with No. 2 Vanderbilt, No. 3 Mississippi State, No. 4 Arkansas, No. 6 Ole Miss, No. 10 Florida, No. 16 Tennessee, and No. 17 Georgia.

Texas, which will face LSU on March 5 at Minute Maid Park in Houston, is No. 1 in the USA Today ranking.

2022 USA Today Preseason Top 25

AP Photo/Wade Payne

*(2021 records in parentheses)

1. Texas (50-17)
2. Vanderbilt (49-18)
3. Mississippi State (50-18)
4. Arkansas (50-13)
5. Stanford (39-17)
6. Mississippi (45-22)
7. LSU (38-25)
8. Oklahoma State (36-19-1)
9. North Carolina State (37-19)
10. Florida (38-22)
11. Notre Dame (34-13)
12. Texas Tech (39-17)
13. East Carolina (44-17)
14. Florida State (31-24)
15. Arizona (45-18)
16. Tennessee (50-18)
17. Georgia (31-25)
18. TCU (41-19)
19. UC Irvine (43-18)
20. Oregon State (37-24)
21. Virginia (36-27)
22. Dallas Baptist (41-18)
23. Georgia Tech (31-25)
24. UCLA (37-20)
25. Duke (33-22)