BATON ROUGE — The LSU Fighting Tigers return to Alex Box Stadium to begin a seven-game homestand this weekend with a three-game series against the Kansas Jayhawks of the Big 12 Conference.
The series gets underway Friday at 6:30 p.m.,. followed by games at 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday. All three games will be available on the full LSU Sports Network (WDGL-98.1 FM in Baton Rouge) and on the Internet at www.lsusports.net.
LSU (4-0) is coming off of its best performance of the young season on Tuesday night, a 15-0 victory over Centenary in Shreveport in which the Tigers collected a season high 19 hits and four pitchers combined on a six-hit shutout.
The Tigers (No. 6 Collegiate Baseball, No. 7 ESPN/USA Today, No. 8 Baseball America) can start 6-0 for the first time since the 2000 national championship season by wining the first two games, and a sweep gives LSU its best start since an SEC record 19-0 start in 1997. LSU has won four of its five national championships following a start of at least 6-0.
LSU’s pitching rotation on Friday and Saturday will remain the same from last weekend’s series against Northwestern State, with senior right-hander Jake Tompkins (0-0, 0.00) starting on Friday and junior Brian Wilson (1-0, 4.76) going on Saturday. Tompkins struck out a career high 11 batters in the season opener, while Wilson went 5 2/3 innings to pick up the win in the second game of the series with the Demons.
LSU coach Smoke Laval was uncertain of a starter for Sunday’s series finale, but it will be either junior right-hander Nate Bumstead (1-0, 2.57) or fifth-year senior right-hander Bo Pettit, who was 9-7 with a 3.35 ERA in 2002 but has not pitched this year. Bumstead made an emergency start on Sunday in the Northwestern State series when Pettit fell ill with the flu and allowed two runs on five hits over seven innings to earn the win.
At the plate, the Tigers are batting .343 with 32 runs scored in four games, an improvement of 84 points over the first four games of 2002. Sophomore infielder Blake Gill is the Tigers’ leading hitter with an even .500 average, collecting two hits in each of the first four games this season. Gill started the 2002 season 0-for-17.
Sophomore center fielder J.C. Holt leads LSU in slugging percentage (.917) and on-base percentage (.533), and went 3-for-6 on Tuesday at Centenary, collecting a double, a triple and a home run. A total of six LSU players had two or more hits in the Centenary game.
The Jayhawks (6-3) are playing their first season under coach Ritch Price, who came to Lawrence from Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo to replace Bobby Randall. KU, which was 22-29 overall in 2002 and finished last in the Big 12 at 5-21, has not enjoyed a winning season since 1997, and have reached the NCAA tournament only twice in its history, going to the College World Series in 1993 and the East Regional in 1994.
KU is coming off of a 10-6 victory over Western Illinois in its home opener on Wednesday, and started the season with four victories in six games at Hawaii-Hilo during Super Bowl weekend. The Jayhawks are slated to face two other SEC teams, Arkansas and Vanderbilt, before heading into Big 12 play in March.
The Jayhawks are slated to start three left-handed pitchers at The Box this weekend, going with junior Ryan Knippschild (1-0, 5.56) on Friday, junior Josh Duran (0-1, 3.12) on Saturday and senior Kevin Wheeler (1-0, 0.00) on Sunday.
Wheeler is also one of the Jayhawks’ leaders at the plate with a .360 batting average, one of six KU players hitting .360 or better. The Jayhawks’ top hitters entering the series are junior outfielder Matt Tribble (.545-1-12) and junior outfielder Ryan Baty (.485-2-10).
This represents only the second series between the teams. LSU swept KU in a three-game set in 1990 in Baton Rouge, winning by scores of 10-1, 9-3 and 8-2. The Tigers and Jayhawks were also in the same bracket of the 1993 CWS, but did not play, as KU went two-and-out, while LSU won its second national championship.
The Tigers’ homestand continues Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m. when Laval’s former team, Louisiana-Monroe, visits Baton Rouge. Nationally ranked Houston comes to The Box next weekend for an important three-game series.