The LSU Tigers are living up to expectations so far this season, off to a 4-0 start with potential to be even better than they have been.
The LSU Tigers baseball season is underway, and has begun as many expected. They went 3-0 in the opening weekend series against the Milwaukee Panthers, mercy ruling them twice. They then beat Kent State Golden Flashes 10-7 on Monday.
D1Baseball released its first update to the top 25 list before that fourth game on Monday. The Tigers were named the preseason No. 2 and will remain there to start this year. The No. 1 UCLA Bruins did drop their Sunday game against UC San Diego, but that wasn't enough to bring them down from the top spot.
College baseball rankings are traditionally a little bit less reactive than a college football poll, given the amount of games and nature of the sport.
LSU won't be complaining about their slot this early in the year. If they take care of their business, they'll find themselves at the top spot so far.
Taking care of business is exactly what they've done so far. Through the first three games of the year, which is the sample size this ranking is based off of, they had outscored their opponents 41-15.
The Tigers' pitching staff is going to be kicking themselves far more than the offense is, and the performances have mostly been promising.
Through four games, Casan Evans leads the team in earned runs allowed at four. That was a good outing until the fourth inning got away from him. William Schmidt gave up three runs, but struck out nine. Even the pitchers that don't have many bright sides to their struggles early, like Santiago Garcia and DJ Primeaux, they are highly touted players that should turn it around.
That's just the poor performances, too. Cooper Moore pitched six innings of one-run ball while picking up 11 strikeouts. Gavin Guidry has been lights out, pitching 4.1 innings over two outings with one hit and 10 punchouts.
The offense is great. Jake Brown looks like one of the best players in the country with four home runs and 10 RBI so far. Zach Yorke has two bombs and was inches away from a third. Seth Dardar looked like a promising piece of the offense. Derek Curiel hasn't had much power, but is getting on base.
It'll be hard to match the defense of last year's squad, but they've had a great start so far. The only error has come from a freshman off the bench.
LSU has all the talent in the world and enough time to put it all together. This has been a perfectly fine start to the year for Jay Johnson's squad.