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.
Jay Johnson said they’re going back to the drawing board on the pitching rotation. He’s going to rewatch all the games and look at the pitching. Florida will be TBA TBA TBA. #LSU
— Leah Vann (@LVann_Sports) March 20, 2022
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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