BATON ROUGE, La. – The 2025 LSU baseball squad opens its six-week fall practice period at 4 p.m. Thursday in Alex Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field.
LSU’s fall baseball intra-squad scrimmages throughout October and November are open to the public. The Tigers will scrimmage this week at 4 p.m. Thursday, 4 p.m. Friday and 1 p.m. Sunday.
Gates to the stadium will open approximately 15 minutes prior to the start of each scrimmage, and fans will be admitted through the Gate 2 home plate entrance.
Admission and parking are free for all intra-squad scrimmages this fall. Dates and times for subsequent scrimmages will be announced in October and November as the fall practice period progresses.
Head coach Jay Johnson, entering his fourth season at LSU, will direct a very talented squad that currently has 17 veteran players and 26 newcomers on its fall roster.
“When we’re involved in skill development with our players, you can really see their talent,” Johnson said, “but you don’t really know yet about their competitive character, and is that talent ready to be usable skill to help the Tigers win. I think the competing element in our intra-squad scrimmages this fall will be amplified so we can draw that out of the players, or discover that we still have a lot of work to do.
“You have to have both the physical talent and the mental skill set in order to be successful at LSU.”
The Tigers feature seven returning players with starting experience at LSU, including senior shortstop Michael Braswell III, senior outfielder Josh Pearson, junior first baseman Jared Jones, junior outfielder Ethan Frey, sophomore second baseman Steven Milam, sophomore outfielder Ashton Larson, and sophomore outfielder/left-handed pitcher Jake Brown.
The pitching staff contains six hurlers who have recorded innings at LSU, including junior right-hander Gavin Guidry, junior right-hander Kade Woods, sophomore right-hander Chase Shores, sophomore right-hander Jaden Noot, sophomore left-hander Kade Anderson and sophomore left-hander DJ Primeaux.
LSU’s class of newcomers includes 12 NCAA Division I transfers, four JUCO transfers and 10 high school signees. Nine LSU players were ranked in August among Baseball America magazine’s Top 100 College Transfers, and 11 Tigers appeared in the Baseball America Top 500 Prospects list for the 2024 MLB Draft.
“We have a lot of new players, and the environment within the team has been very positive,” Johnson said. “We have some young pitchers that have shown great promise on the mound, and there’s definitely some physical power across our team. With the way SEC baseball is played, if you don’t have that, it’s going to be tough.
“There are a lot of players that have caught my eye, but we’ll have a clearer picture once we see them in a competitive setting with our intra-squad games.”
LSU opens the 2025 season on Friday, February 14, when the Tigers play host to Purdue Fort Wayne in Alex Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field.