On March 5, the LSU bats were rolling.
Besides a rough 11-inning stretch against Omaha, the attack seemingly couldn't be stopped. LSU had scored 31 runs the weekend prior in Frisco, Texas, and had accumulated 12 hits in a seven-run effort a week earlier against .
It was a level of offensive dominance that was missing from last year's team, and the kind of consistency that once defined the 2023 national championship team.
"I'm excited about how we have it flowing right now," LSU coach Jay Johnson said March 5 after the Tigers' 13-3 win in seven innings over North Dakota State.
A critical piece of the success was the Tigers' ability to hit both left- and right-handed pitching. Johnson had spent the offseason improving lineup depth, making sure his team could match up with whatever kind of pitcher opponents threw at them.
But as LSU has gone deeper into Southeastern Conference play, the lineup has struggled to match its early success. For as confident as Johnson was in the group's ability to mash pitching from the left or right side, LSU has struggled against left-handed pitching recently.
It is something the Tigers need to solve ahead of this weekend's series against Arkansas, a three-game set at Alex Box Stadium that begins Friday against left-handed starter Zach Root (6:30 p.m., SEC Network+).
"We just need to be a little bit better. That's it," Johnson said Thursday. "We need to have a few more good at-bats to score five or six, and then this team can be as successful as we all want it to be."
Last weekend against Texas A&M, a team that started a left-handed pitcher in each game of the series, LSU went 18 for 84 against lefties with 24 strikeouts and just eight extra-base hits.
Five of the seven pitchers the Tigers faced were left-handed in a series in which they scored seven runs. Aggie starters Justin Lamkin and Ryan Prager combined to allow just three earned runs and strike out 11 in 12â…“ innings.
Johnson has sung Lamkin and Prager's praises as veteran SEC starters, but both pitchers entered last weekend with ERAs over 4.90 against conference competition this season. Prager's SEC ERA was 6.23.
"They're good. That's why they're so valuable," Johnson said. "That's why Kade Anderson, somebody's gonna give him $6 million. Because if they can go to four pitches and pitch on both sides of the plate and be really unpredictable and get guys in between, (that's important)."
Against Tennessee, LSU was 3 for 36 against left-handers. It also went 7 for 39 at Auburn and 7 for 33 vs. Alabama southpaws.
The Tigers posted similarly poor numbers in the first half of the SEC schedule. They were just 8 for 38 against lefties in their sweep over Oklahoma and 11 for 49 in the series loss to Texas.
The only series where they found some success against southpaws came against Mississippi State and Missouri. They went 10 for 26 against the Bulldogs — a series in which LSU scored 17 runs in the finale — and 13 for 40 vs. Missouri.
Mississippi State is on track to potentially sneak into the NCAA Tournament, but Missouri is 0-24 in SEC play.
"The best teams always have left-handed hitting and left-handed pitching," Johnson said. "Left-handed pitching neutralizes the teams that have the best left-handed hitting, and those teams beat most college teams that rely on right-handed pitching."
LSU had stuck with a similar lineup structure for most of the season before the Auburn series. Freshman Derek Curiel hit lead off, junior Jared Jones was behind him and junior Daniel Dickinson batted third.
Jones and Dickinson going back-to-back was the only spot in the lineup where LSU had consecutive hitters on the same side of the plate. When a lefty was on the mound, they could pivot to a more right-handed centric lineup that included the likes of junior Ethan Frey.
"There is still a lot of left-right mixing because we're going to see probably a 50/50 split between left- and right-handed pitchers in SEC play," Johnson said in March in regards to the lineup structure. "But we've been great against both. The splits are — I don't know this to be true after today's game — but they were pretty close to identical. And a lot of that is because we can match up and we have have depth, so I like it, but I don't think we're really pigeon holed into anything."
But since getting swept on The Plains, LSU hasn't been able to set a rhythm with its lineup, a reality Johnson admitted after Sunday's loss to the Aggies.
"It's a little bit game-by-game, until you get going type thing," Johnson said, "and that's just kind of where we're at."
LSU shook up its order more against Texas A&M than it had in any series this season. Freshman John Pearson made his first start in SEC play, junior Chris Stanfield moved out of the No. 9 spot in Game 2, and Jones hit leadoff in games 2 and 3.
Johnson attributed the lineup changes in Game 2 to Lamkin's success against left-handed hitters. But even if his lineup adjustments haven't all been as drastic as they were that day, the Tigers still have not found a rhythm with their order since the Auburn series.
"This year, for 34 games, we were about as straight up as I've ever been," Johnson said. "And it was great. Nobody liked that more than me."
Not all of LSU's recent struggles can be linked to its troubles against lefties. The Tigers had one hit through six innings against Tennessee right-hander Marcus Phillips. Texas A&M right-hander Weston Moss gave LSU fits out of the bullpen.
But for LSU to earn a top-eight seed in the NCAA Tournament and make it to Omaha, it will need to improve its play against left-handed pitching. Arkansas likely will start southpaws on Friday and Sunday. South Carolina — LSU's final regular-season opponent — has four left-handers who have thrown at least 10 innings in conference play.
Countless left-handers await for LSU after next weekend as well. How the Tigers will respond to them will factor into the fate of their season.
"If you're playing in the SEC, you're just facing the best guys," Johnson said. "And I think most of it has to do with staying committed to our plan and persevering through some of the difficulties."
