SCHMIDT DOMINATES — But Is LSU’s Offense a Problem?

It's the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. trash talk chat. You also get an ad-free version of your favorite locked on show and a whole lot more. You can check it out by tapping the everyday or club link in the show notes. Tigers shut out Dartmouth, but the bats have gone quiet. We're recapping it locked on LSU. Here we go. you are locked on LSU your daily podcast on the LSU Tigers part of the locked on podcast network your team every day okay let's get it it is locked on LSU your team every day I'm your host Matt Moscona thanks so much for making us your first listen we are free available wherever you get great podcast of course on youtube as well so please subscribe and as always one of the fastest ways to help us grow is by leaving your comments below so thank you sincerely for that thank you for helping make the locked on podcast network the number one sports podcast network okay lsu beats dartmouth three to nothing behind an incredible day by william schmidt and i know the tendency is default to the negative which is the lsu offense which for four straight games now has gone into the deep freeze. I'll get to the offense, but I'd be remiss if we didn't start with what I think is the more important thing. And that's the LSU pitching, certainly the starting pitching, William Schmidt's day, his longest outing of the season at seven and a third, the second longest outing of the season for any LSU pitcher bested only by what Cooper Moore did on Saturday going seven and two thirds. So coming through the first weekend and plus, I would say the biggest question mark that maybe people had about this team as they were slugging the baseball was could the starting pitching extend? And this was a weekend to go back to back now and to see your three starters, all three of them, not only be effective, not only extend, but to throw strikes was awesome. Listen, I understand the competition, so I'm not trying to downsell that. But the bottom line is you got to go throw strikes. And all three of your starters did that. The problem early in the year was the walks. you seem to have remedied that among your starters. Evans goes five and a third, two runs on two hits, 10 strikeouts, he walked three. Cooper Moore, as we mentioned, seven and two thirds, just one run on three hits, struck out 10, one walk. And then William Schmidt goes seven and a third, no runs, four scattered hits, nine strikeouts, did not walk a batter. He did hit the last batter he faced, but pretty incredible for LSU's three starters to combine for 29 strikeouts and four walks. Three starting pitchers, 29 strikeouts, four walks. You're going to win a lot of weekends with that efficiency. Yes, you'll face better offensive teams, but undeniably, LSU starting pitchers have great stuff. As for Schmidt specifically, started the game by retiring the first 12 hitters he faced. He was perfect through four, and then in the fifth, gave up the leadoff single, but then promptly got the ground ball double play, which was awesome. It did give up another single, then a ground out to get out of it. I thought for Schmidt, the biggest inning of the game, though, was the sixth. So as we mentioned there in the fifth, he gave up the leadoff single, but then promptly got the ground ball double play. In the sixth, however, this was probably the stickiest spot. You're in a two to nothing ball game, and Schmidt gives up a leadoff single again, he gives up the single through the left side. And the thing is, nobody hit him hard. The only ball that was really blistered off of Schmidt the entire day was in the second when, I'm trying to give credit to the hitter who hit the ball, it was Axel Reese who had himself a weekend. I mean, he's an impressive player. Axel Reese hit a missile to center, and Derek Curiel made a beautiful play going toward the wall over his shoulder to rob Reese of extra base hits. That's probably the only ball that was really hit hard off of Schmidt all day. Well, Anderson rolls one through the left side, so you have a runner on. Well, this is when LSU tried the pickoff attempt, and the ball got past. It got past. Let's see. I'm trying to see who they gave the error to. So they gave the error to Schmidt. And so now you have a runner at second with nobody out. And a two to nothing ballgame. I mean, and they've managed to piece together a few hits here. And so all of a sudden, you're like, all right, Schmidt's got a rare back throw strikes and get some easy outs without allowing that run to get home. He goes, strike out on five pitches, strike out on four pitches. And then the tapper to third base where Tanner Reeves tagged the runner going from second to third unassisted to get out of it. So go strikeout, strikeout, ground out, unassisted, five unassisted to get out of it. I thought that was huge for William Schmidt right there. And then to come back in the seventh, and he was efficient. He went fly out, gave up a single, but then went fly out, strike out. He was at 87 pitches through seven, went back out for the eighth. And clearly Jay was going to let him go for as long as he didn't allow anybody on base. Go strikeout, hit by pitch, and then brought in Dak Stoffe, who promptly hit another guy. They brought in Maverick Rizzy who couldn't get you home, got you out of the eighth, but couldn't get you home in the ninth, and they needed to bring on Newt to finish it. So I thought awesome day for William Schmidt, awesome day for the weekend, for the staff as a whole. You know, you used two pitchers Friday, two pitchers Saturday. You ended up using four pitchers on Sunday because Dothie hit a guy, Rizzy couldn't get it home, and then Newt ended up getting the final out. But all things considered, a really good weekend, And I think that has to be the cornerstone of what we talk about and where we start. Because if you're going to go out there and walk people like LSU did early in the season, that's going to end up, it's going to bite you against better teams. And to go out this weekend the way they did, getting three quality starts from Evans, Moore, and Schmidt, I thought was awesome. I know some people are asking, might Jay consider shuffling the rotation? I don't know that they're necessarily ready to do that, especially as we've seen Evans continue to improve. And the stuff's in there from Evans, right? I mean we seen it throughout his career both as a starter and as a reliever I mean last year in the regional he struck out nine straight hitters from Little Rock I mean it there right He struck out 10 with three walks on Friday and was the victim of some bad baseball fortune Same thing last weekend in Jacksonville, where the blow-up inning in the third, one ball got out of the infield. It was just some bad defense, some bad baseball luck. So I don't think that they're ready to make that kind of move. and I still would say, man, if you have more on Saturday and Schmidt throwing the way he did on Sunday, I mean, you have the best very likely or as good a Saturday Sunday guys you have anywhere in the country. So I don't know that they'd be ready to make that change yet, but a really strong weekend for the Tigers and a great outing by William Schmidt. Check in my notes real quick to see if there's anything else from Schmidt's day that, I mean, 11 pitches in the first. I mean, that was the other thing about Schmidt. When he's out there throwing strikes, y'all, it's the efficiency. You know, 12 up, 12 down, a three-pitch strikeout in the third. He got the ground ball double play in the fifth to shorten that one. In the sixth, we just talked about what he went through there. And, you know, in the seventh, aside from the wild pitch, was really efficient there as well. So for Schmidt to make it through the day on, let's see, his final pitch count was, one second, y'all, my apologies. Schmidt threw 95 pitches. So to go through seven and a third on 95 pitches, my goodness, what a day. Just by comparison, a day ago, Moore was at 89 pitches through seven. His final pitch count on the day, Cooper Moore, was – my apologies, y'all. One second. I'm trying to get Cooper Moore's final pitch count from game two. Cooper Moore threw Cooper Moore's final pitch count was 104. So Cooper Moore got one extra hitter, went to 104. Schmidt was at 95 through seven and a third. So great job by the LSU starting pitching all together on the weekend. So now I know what everybody's going to want to talk about, of course, is what's happened with the offense. I have some thoughts. We'll go through that and go through the day. Let me get my elements in real quick. We'll be back and we'll talk about the offense. It is Locked on LSU, your team every day. 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Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed-sponsored jobs. This is Mazda's moving the game forward for those who show there's more to the score than what's on the screen. How could we go anywhere else today other than the day that William Schmidt had as LSU's Sunday starter? Seven and a third, season-long outing for Schmidt. no runs on just four scattered hits he struck out nine he did not walk a batter he did hit the last battery face and uncorked one wild pitch but 95 pitches for william schmidt 63 of them strikes now in the season is era of just 165 william schmidt was awesome on sunday and this reminds us of what it takes to raise the bar the extra work off the field dialing in every detail giving it the extra fire grit never quit mazda puts that same passion into every model highlights make the reel what it took to get there makes it count there's more to a Mazda because there's more to you and finally let me remind you about FanDuel because if you've ever wanted to experience the NBA Finals live and in person FanDuel is giving you the chance to turn that dream into reality with their NBA sweepstakes here's how it works use your profit boost on any NBA future and you're automatically entered for a shot to win an NBA Finals trip for two that's right flights tickets the whole experience if you're already looking at the board thinking about which team can make a deep run to the NBA finals, this is the perfect time to lock it in. 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For a team that offensively had been blistering the baseball to start the season, I can understand why you might be a little concerned seeing that. Now, they'll update all of the stats for LSU after this game, and we'll be able to take a look at season totals. But as of right now, as I look at LSU's batting averages coming out of this game, Jake Brown's hitting 415. The only regulars still over 300 are Carraway at 306. Dardar is right at an even 300. And that's it. Derek Curiel's at 292. York is down to 289. Aaron Beattie's at 289. Milam's at 279. Braun's at 286. You kind of get the point, right? Like it's not been good the last four games. I'm not going to suggest that it has been. What I will say is I'd be more concerned if I thought the plate discipline was going away. I think we have to acknowledge part of this is you're playing teams, and this isn't like some unique thought. I'm not going to blow your mind with this opinion. But you know the pitcher today from Dartmouth here on Sunday who did an outstanding job of handcuffing LSU his name was Eddie Albert I mean Albert was topping out upper 80s with his fastball So when you throwing an 87 fastball and a 78 breaking ball and even a day ago we saw some breaking balls in the upper 60s, it's just not what this team is used to seeing. So sometimes working to time that pitcher can be a challenge when you're not used to seeing that. I mean, when you're going through intra-squads and all of your scrimmages, and you're seeing guys pumping mid-90s with wipeout sliders, your eyes train to that. And so then you're seeing something completely different, which we see this on opening games of regionals against four seeds. You see it pretty commonly in midweek games as well. Even this year, when you look at some of the success LSU's had, a lot of it has been on the backs of opposing pitchers walking a lot of LSU hitters. As we look at the season totals for LSU coming into this game, LSU's hitters coming into this game, had walked 78 times already coming into this game. So the patience has been there. If I thought they were pressing and chasing pitches out of the zone and taking bad swings, that would be something. But the guy who pitched for Dartmouth on Sunday was outstanding. He walked one hitter in seven innings. He struck out eight. he was outstanding at controlling the at controlling both sides of the plate he changed elevations he changed speeds that was fantastic pitchability by contrast look at what you saw from maverick rizzy that's the definition of having elite stuff but not commanding it you're hitting a guy you're walking a guy on four pitches you're i mean he was in the left handers batter's box then up and into the backstop to a right-handed hitter on consecutive pitches that's whenever nate yes he came out for the mound visit that's that's the the difference between knowing how to pitch and having great stuff so Eddie Albert the kid from Dartmouth tip your cap I mean he did an outstanding job of painting the corners changing speeds changing elevations and LSU just wasn't able to square him up Jake Brown got him twice Brown hit the homer and then hit the double so as you look at the game there were in this game a couple of missed opportunities for LSU offensively, the second was probably the biggest missed opportunity because the lone walk in the game from Eddie Albert came to lead off the second inning. So you had an opportunity for a big inning in the second and came away with nothing because Milam walked on a full count pitch to lead off the second and then went to second on a wild pitch. So you have a runner on second with nobody out. Aaron Beattie strikes out on a full count pitch. Then Dardar's hit by a pitch. So now you've got first and second with one out. Carraway grounds out to third base to runners advance. You know, you have second and third with two outs and Reeves up and Reeves flies out harmlessly to center field and they get out of it. But again, you had a runner on second base with nobody out and you came away with nothing. That's the kind of missed opportunity that I think is really tough to justify. I think we have to continue to credit Jake Brown. He continues to be awesome. He hit the home run in the first to put LSU up 1-0. And then the final run LSU scored was the RBI double where he hit the missile in the bottom of the eighth to put LSU up 3-0. The only other scoring for LSU in this game came in the bottom of the fourth, and they gave you a gift, man. And I don't know, I was watching the broadcast like I'm sure many of you were, and so you heard the explanation that Ronnie Ranch on the broadcast gave after talking to the official scorer. There was a ball to center where the center fielder lost it in the sun, hit him in the glove, and he dropped it. They rolled that a double. Apparently, if it is determined that any of the discomfort was because of losing a ball in the sun, it's automatically hit. The ball in left, the left fielder just never had a beat on it. They said that it was the wind that blew the ball back in play, and he just misplayed it, which is why that was ruled an error. But however you want to do it, bottom line is, Dartmouth had a lot of trouble with the elements. And in that inning, the double to center field that Milam got was a lazy fly ball. And then Dardar, the ball to left that was ruled an error, was probably win-aided, and that's when Milam scored. So it's not like you even put a lot of good swings on Eddie Albert today. I'm trying to see if I had any other notes of good swings from LSU. The bottom of the second was the missed opportunity. That was the one. the one the one really good swing where an LSU offensive player was robbed was what was bottom of the third Braun hit a sinking liner to center to lead off the inning and the center fielder made a beautiful play charging and got a great read off the bat charged and made the play that's one where the baseball gods will reward Braun somewhere down the line with that but um it just didn't really induce a lot of strong contact, solid contact, because I thought that Albert did a really good job of keeping LSU's hitters guessing and off balance. The other thing, a couple of other things, not specific to the game, but maybe big picture offensively for LSU. We did see Braun lead off. And one of the things that we've kind of talked about here is whenever Stanfield comes back, I think Stanfield is going to, well, it's hard to say definitively what Jay's going to do, but in the season opener, Stanfield led off and Curiel batted the two hole. So one of the things we've talked about here is trying to jumpstart Curiel by moving him into the two hole. So when Stanfield comes back, Stanfield leads off, Curiel goes to the two hole. The reason for that, you're just going to see more fastballs in the two hole. It's why Dylan Cruz hit the two hole for a lot of his L. He led off like Dylan Cruz batted everywhere one through four during his career, but you did see him in the two hole a lot because if you had a table setter in the leadoff spot, Cruz could bat in the two-hole and you'd see more fastballs. So I like that trying to get Derek Curiel jump-started by moving him into the two-hole. Braun leading off in this ballgame didn't have an awesome day. He was robbed, as we mentioned. Nobody had an awesome day, but he was 0 for forward two strikeouts. So if you're going to lead off and have Curiel behind you, then you've got to be able to get on base. And the unfortunate thing is that he didn't in this ballgame. When you look at the on-base percentage for LSU in the season among the regulars, Dardar is at 523. Like, for example, Daniel Harden's at 750. Jack Rucker's at 600. Braden Simpson's at 571. He's only got 15 at-bats on the season. Pearson's at 538. He's got 11 at-bats. So when you start talking about the regulars, Dardar's at 523. York's at 510. Brown's at 473. Brown's at 467. So it makes sense. right? That's why Jay was probably looking at it going, all right, bronze had a propensity of getting on base. Let's put him in the leadoff spot, have Curry all behind him, maybe see a few more fastballs get a little run production going Braun just had no for over four day with two strikeouts didn get on base So I like I say it all the time If I can agree if the logic for why you made a decision makes sense then I can live with the results. It's baseball. I mean, sometimes you hit a ball 400 feet and it's an out. Sometimes you hit a dribbler down the third baseline and it's a single. That's baseball. So sometimes you can put good swings or have a bad day, but I like what Jay was trying to do here. because Braun had been a guy who had gotten on base consistently and thinking, all right, let's put a table setter at the top, bump Curry out of the two holes, see if he gets a few more fastballs, see if maybe he can put some good swings. It just didn't really manifest in this game. So the other thing that I'll be interested to see is what options might there be in left field for as long as Stanfield is out. Reeves had a really rough day. Tanner Reeves was 0 for 3 with two strikeouts in this ballgame. He was replaced by Patrick, certainly a defensive replacement late in the ballgame. But when you look at this lineup, there just aren't many spots in the everyday lineup where you're rotating guys. Like every day, Curiel and Brown and York and Milam and Aaron Beattie and Carraway, like they're going to be written into the lineup every day. And when Stanfield's back, he's going to be your left fielder every day. And Dardar has established himself as the starting second baseman. Like that's not changing. I mean, Dardar right now just told you his on base percentage is five, a 23 slugging six 43. His averages dip down to two 86, but Dardar has gotten on base for you. So he's really one seemingly for now that starting second base job. So he's not coming out of the lineup except for what they're doing late in the game with the defensive replacement with Jack record, which I love that by the way, you're going to, deal with some shortcomings in the field. Dardar booted two balls on Saturday at second base, which is unfortunate, but he's not a plus defender. But Jay favors offense, so you're going to see Dardar there. All that to say, the only spot in the field where you really have a competition, aside from DH, is in left field where you're getting guys playing time. So maybe it's giving Patrick a start. I've kind of lobbied to see Daniel Harden get a game. like Harden is, and I know some of you will look at that and say, I'm just lobbying for the Catholic high guy. But if you've watched, Harden is just an incredibly impressive athlete. Like he, he looks like he's a younger version physically of Jake Brown. I mean, he's six, two, he's two Oh five. He's put together. He runs like the wind. He's a, he's a toolsy player with explosive power, dynamic speed. He's like, I'd love to see what it looks like. Obviously you'll have a true outfielder there with, with Harden. if he's in left, which would make you better than Simpson or Reeves. It's been a little bit of an experiment out there. But I'd also love to see what does it look like if Harden's not just in a pinch hit role, but if he knows he's going to get four or five A-Bs in the game so he can kind of settle into the flow of the game. I'd love to see what that looks like. Maybe it's a year away for a guy like Harden, or maybe as the season goes along, he'll get more opportunities. I don't know when Chris Stanfield's coming back, when Jay Johnson met with reporters on Thursday, said they'd like to have him back next week. If you watch the game on Sunday, cameras caught Stanfield a couple times with a heavy wrap on his right hand. That doesn't look good. I'm just speculating there. And Jay's never really forthcoming with injuries. His prerogative, he doesn't have to tell us anything. If he doesn't want to, if he feels like he's giving up a competitive advantage, okay. But similarly, it also means I don't know that I'm just going to take Jay at his word when he talks about injuries because he's just not forthcoming with injuries. I mean, all last year, he was very coy about Gavin Guidry. who ended up having back surgery and missing the whole season. So, you know, I'm excited to see Stanfield come back when he does because he's going to immediately make you better in left field. And remember, Stanfield, we've said this a couple times, if you've forgotten, but Stanfield was your leading hitter in SEC play a year ago. This guy who was played in 200 games has 500 career at-bats. So, like, he's plug and play, and he's going to make you better immediately. But in the meantime, with Reeves and Simpson struggling a bit, maybe it's an opportunity to get someone else a look. And you have an opportunity here with two more games in the next three days because you're going to play Northeastern on Monday. And then you're going to, for your four-game weekend, then you're going to come back with a midweek game as well. And, you know, maybe an opportunity to get someone else an opportunity to run out there and give it a little bit of a go. So Tigers will play Northeastern on Monday. And then Wednesday, they had two Lafayette to play the Cajuns. they'll play at Teague Moore Field. I love going on the road. You'll know that. I think it's a great, you need to do that early in the season to go taste what it's like to get away from the box. But maybe for a guy like Harden, you don't want his first start to come on the road. Maybe Monday you make the change in left and then go back and you play Reeves, who's a little more veteran against the Cajuns on Wednesday. We'll see ultimately what they elect to do. But if you're concerned about the offense, I don't blame you. I would also remind you that it's a 56-game marathon. It is an evolution. you're going to have lulls offensively. You're going to have great stretches offensively. But mostly what I would say is encouraging is early in the season, you were finding ways to win a game by win games by slugging when you're pitching, you're starting pitching wasn't great. You found a way here over the last two weekends to really start to throw strikes and see your starting pitchers extend. And whenever your offense hasn't been great, you've been able to win pitcher's duels. It's showing the ability to win games in multiple ways so you're not so reliant on your offense slugging your way to victory because there's going to be days and weekends where it just isn't very good. And this was one of those, objectively. The last four games dating back to Tuesday's loss to McNeese, offensively, we've just been bad. So we'd love to see them get going a little bit. They'll have an opportunity on Monday with Northwestern at the Box. LSU wraps up a four-game weekend. And, of course, we will be right here to recap it. Thanks so much for hanging out with us. if you're with us live on YouTube, nearly 300 of you watching live with us right now, much respect and I appreciate you so much. Please do me a favor, smash that like button on YouTube, subscribe to the channel. If you're watching or listening on demand, thank you podcast. Please subscribe on your favorite podcast app, rate us, leave a review, and let a friend know that they love the Tigers. 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