BATON ROUGE — With three teams within one and one half games of Southeastern Conference leader LSU, the Fighting Tigers look to stay ahead of the pack in their chase for the conference baseball championship this weekend when they welcome the Tennessee Volunteers to Alex Box Stadium for a three-game series.
The series gets underway on Friday at the normal 6:30 p.m. start time, but the start times for the games on Saturday and Sunday have been altered. Saturday’s game will start at 6 p.m., not the usual 2 p.m. Saturday start time, while Sunday’s game time has been moved up 30 minutes to a 12:30 p.m. start, rather than 1 p.m.
All three games will be broadcast by the full LSU Sports Network (WDGL-98.1 FM in Baton Rouge), with live audio and live statistics available on the Internet at www.lsusports.net.
For the first time this season, all three games of the series will be televised live. Friday’s game is part of LSU’s package with Cox Sports Television, and can be seen in Baton Rouge on cable channel 38 and all Cox systems in Louisiana and the Gulf South. Saturday’s game will be broadcast by Comcast Sports Southeast as part of Tennessee’s Saturday night package, but is not available in Louisiana.
Sunday’s game will be shown by the Louisiana Sports Network (cable channel 10 in Baton Rouge) as part of its Sunday afternoon home game package.
LSU (27-13-1, 12-5-1) enters the weekend one-half game ahead of Auburn, one game ahead of Mississippi State and one and one half games ahead of Arkansas in the West division and for the overall SEC lead.
LSU entered last weekend’s series at Vanderbilt in the same predicament, but failed to gain ground as the Tigers dropped two of three to the Commodores in Nashville, their first SEC series loss after winning nine-straight conference series.
The Tigers’ pitching rotation will remain the same as it has been for the previous three conference series in April. Freshman right-hander Justin Meier (4-2, 2.58) will be looking to break a two-game losing streak on Friday, while senior right-hander Bo Pettit (6-1, 4.34) and junior right-hander Nate Bumstead (6-1, 4.39) look to win their seventh game of the season on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
Bumstead, who split time in the first month and a half of the season between the starting rotation and the bullpen, is 5-0 since being inserted into the SEC rotation for the Georgia series in late March. The Las Vegas native has walked just seven batters in 39 innings pitched in the SEC.
Tennessee (24-17, 8-10) has lost three of its last five games, including a 2-1 loss to Tennessee Tech in Cookeville in its last game on Tuesday. The Vols are just 2-7 on the road in the SEC this year after losing the first two games of their series last weekend at Kentucky before salvaging a 9-8 win in the finale.
The Vols are just one game behind South Carolina for the East division lead, but will likely need to finish first or second in the division to reach the SEC Tournament, as all six West division teams have a better conference record. Tennessee has reached the post-season just once in the previous five years, finishing third in the 2001 College World Series.
Tennessee coach Rod Delmonico will go with a pair of junior left-handers in the first two games of the series, starting with Ben Riley (3-3, 2.89) on Friday and Derek Tharpe (4-4, 3.67) on Saturday. Sunday’s starter will be junior right-hander Brandon Crowe (3-0, 4.88), who has been used primarily out of the Vols’ bullpen this year after missing all of 2002 with Tommy John surgery to repair a torn ligament in his right elbow.
Tennessee’s top hitter is senior center fielder Jordan Czarniecki, who comes in hitting .340 and has stolen 26 bases in 32 attempts. Czarniecki drove in both Tennessee runs in last year’s series opener with a two-run single in the eighth inning that gave the Vols a 2-1 win over LSU ace Lane Mestepey.
The Vols have hit just 25 home runs on the year and are batting .294, but have dangerous speed, stealing 65 bases and laying down 25 successful sacrifice bunt attempts.
LSU holds a decisive 33-10 edge in the series, and in Baton Rogue, the Tigers have won all but two of the 23 meetings, with the Vols’ only victories coming in 1973 and 1992. The Tigers have won seven straight meetings in Alex Box Stadium, completing three-game sweeps in 1996 and 1998.
The last two series have taken place in Knoxville, as the Vols have not come to the bayou since 1998. Tennessee won two of three at Lindsey Nelson Stadium in 1999 for only its second series win over LSU, but after winning the first game of last year’s series, LSU stormed back to take the final two games of the set, 16-4 and 6-2.
LSU is back in action on Tuesday at 7:05 p.m. when it treks to the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans for its third meeting with archrival Tulane. The Tigers and the Green Wave, who split their first two meetings this season, set an NCAA attendance record last year at the Superdome when 27,673 fans watched the Tigers’ 9-5 victory.
The Tigers host New Orleans on Wednesday before a three-game SEC series next weekend at Mississippi State.