STARKVILLE, Miss. — If LSU is to win its first Southeastern Conference baseball championship since 1997 and its 13th league title overall, the Fighting Tigers will need to survive a tough May schedule that begins this weekend with a three-game series against perennial league power Mississippi State at Dudy Noble Field.
The series gets underway at 6:30 p.m. Friday and continues with games at 3 p.m. Saturday and 1:30 p.m. Sunday. All three games will be broadcast throughout Louisiana on 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.
The final two games of the series will be televised live. Saturday’s game is the SEC-TV Game of the Week, and will be shown in Baton Rouge on Fox Sports Net Southwest (cable channel 37) and in other SEC markets on Fox Sports Net South and Sunshine Network. Sunday’s game will be televised live throughout Louisiana by the Jumbo Sports Network (WGMB-Fox 44, cable channel 6 in Baton Rogue) and can be seen in other SEC markets on Comcast Sports Southeast.
LSU (31-14-1, 15-5-1) enters the series with a two and a half game lead over Auburn, its closest competitor in the SEC standings, and a three-game lead over Mississippi St. The Tigers will host Auburn next weekend at Alex Box Stadium before closing the season at Arkansas.
The Tigers (No. 6 Collegiate Baseball, No. 10 Baseball America, No. 12 ESPN/USA Today) split a pair of midweek games, defeating New Orleans 7-2 at home on Wednesday after dropping a 9-5 decision to Tulane on Tuesday in the Louisiana Superdome. Tuesday’s LSU-Tulane game drew a paid crowd of 18,319 and an actual crowd of 16,243, the highest attendance figure for a college baseball game this year.
The Tigers, who swept Tennessee last weekend at home, outscoring the Volunteers 42-17 and collecting 47 hits. LSU has scored 179 runs in 21 conference games, tallying 10 or more runs 10 times. The Tigers are batting .341 in conference games, 43 points higher than Auburn’s SEC mark of .298.
Leading the way for the Tigers at the plate is sophomore outfielder/designated hitter Ryan Patterson, the reigning SEC Player of the Week. Patterson is batting .358 for the full season and .393 in SEC games, and last week, was 9-for-14 with two home runs in the Tennessee series.
Patterson has been one of the SEC’s top clutch hitters this season, batting .467 with runners in scoring position, and .520 in those situations in SEC games.
Also swinging a hot bat for LSU is sophomore second baseman Blake Gill, who enters the series on a 12-game hitting streak, the Tigers’ fifth hitting streak of 10 or more games this season.
LSU coach Smoke Laval will stick with the same pitching rotation the Tigers have used since an elbow injury sidelined Friday night starter Brian Wilson for the season in late March. Freshman right-hander Justin Meier (5-2, 2.85) will take the hill on Friday, followed by senior right-hander Bo Pettit (7-1, 4.64) on Saturday and junior right-hander Nate Bumstead (7-1, 3.90) on Sunday.
Bumstead has been the Tigers’ steadiest pitcher this year, winning all six of his SEC starts and going at least seven innings in each outing.
Mississippi St. (31-12-1, 12-8) won nine of its first 10 SEC games, including road sweeps of Arkansas and Ole Miss, to climb to the top of the league standings, but is 3-7 after that hot start, losing its last three conference series. The Bulldogs dropped two of three last weekend at Florida, giving up 32 runs in the series.
The Bulldogs are coached by the legendary Ron Polk, now in his 24th season at Starkville and his second season back at the school after two seasons at Georgia. Polk has won an SEC record 1,031 games at MSU and Georgia, and has a 62-46 career mark against LSU.
Polk’s rotation will be the same at has been throughout the conference slate. First up is the ace of the Bulldog staff, junior left-hander Paul Maholm (6-2, 2.34), who will be looking to bounce back from a rough outing last weekend at Florida, when he gave up eight runs on 10 hits in five innings.
Sophomore right-hander Alan Johnson (4-2, 4.29) and sophomore left-hander Todd Nicholas (4-2, 3.22) will follow Maholm in the rotation on Saturday and Sunday. The Bulldogs also feature one of the nation’s best bullpens, led by a pair of right-handers in junior Jonathan Papelbon (6-1, 0.52, 6 saves) and redshirt freshman Jamie Gant (2-1, 0.30).
The Bulldogs’ batting order features several experienced players, led by senior shortstop Matthew Maniscalco, a four-year starter who leads State with a .351 batting average. Following close behind are junior first baseman Matthew Brinson (.337) and junior third baseman Steve Gendron (.335).
The series with State dates back to 1905, making it the oldest rivalry for LSU with any current SEC opponent. Only three other schools have a longer history with LSU — Tulane (1893), Centenary (1895) and Texas (1899).
The Bulldogs hold a 185-149-1 all-time edge in the series, including a 104-54-1 edge in Starkville. The Tigers, however, have won the last two series in Starkville, taking two games each in 1999 and 2001, when current Florida coach Pat McMahon coached the Bulldogs.
The teams split a two-game series in Baton Rouge last year, with State winning the opener, 15-4, before LSU won the second game, 7-3. The third game, scheduled for Easter Sunday, was canceled by heavy rain in the morning and not made up.
LSU plays its final four home games of the regular season next week, starting with a Tuesday game against Loyola of New Orleans.
Other SEC series this weekend are Alabama at Tennessee, Florida at Auburn, Ole Miss at Arkansas, Vanderbilt at Georgia and Kentucky at South Carolina.