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. LSU rallies past Dartmouth to win five to two. We got your recap 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're free available wherever you get great podcast, of course, on YouTube as well. So please subscribe as always. One of the fastest ways to help us grow is by leaving your comments below. So thank you sincerely for that. And thank you for helping make the Locked On Podcast Network, the number one sports podcast network. Tigers win five to two over Dartmouth, a game that wasn't very pretty, but it's one of those games that I look at. I don't know if you agree with this, but it's okay if you don't. I look at a game like that, and I'm encouraged by the fact that when you're not your best, you find a different way to win. Because this is an LSU team that for much of the first two weeks has just slugged its way past everyone. Even in the lost Tuesday to McNeese, there were two crooked number innings, but LSU still pushed late in that game, put up a couple of crooked numbers, gave themselves a chance to win. So this was a game where when your offense wasn't very good, you still found a way to get outs, limit your opponent, and put enough offense on the board in different kinds of ways to win the game. LSU in this ballgame scored five runs on, wait for it, five hits. LSU had five hits against Dartmouth. But you want to talk about efficiency? five runs on five hits is a really efficient way to go about the evening. Now, what they were able to do is maximize some of the mistakes by Dartmouth. They took seven walks. Three players were hit by a pitch in this game. You saw a couple of safety squeeze plays to get runs home. They were able to manufacture offense when they couldn't just slug their way to it. And by the way, that tip to Dartmouth and whoever the right fielder was, I'll tell you his name here. I'm going to shout him out because he deserves to be a shout out. The right fielder, his name is Axel Reese. Hell of a name, by the way. Made two incredible catches in right field. One off the bat of Derek Curiel. One off the bat of Jake Brown. Both would have been run scoring extra base hits. So hat tip to Axel Reese in right field for Dartmouth, who quite honestly kept his team in this game. But it was a game where LSU offensively, as we said, was not very good. Through five innings, LSU had one hit. Braden Simpson's hit was the only hit through the first five innings of that game. And so in spite of that, you still found a way to win, which I think is encouraging. So let's get to the offense and some of the other things in the next segment. I'll talk about the offense, what we saw. A couple other concerns here in a bit. but we'd be remiss if we didn't start with the pitching performance by case and Evans and Gavin Guidry. You know, we all, I think collectively wanted to see case and Evans extend deeper and into the ball game, right? That really has been sort of the bugaboo after week one where Evans couldn't get out of the fourth inning. And we're looking at it going, okay, if you're going to be a true SEC Friday night ace, you've got to be able to take the ball on a Friday and save your bullpen. You've got to get 18 to 20 outs in that ballgame. You've got to get through six, seven innings to be able to preserve your bullpen for the rest of the weekend because it's not going to be as good with the guys after that. And so Evans, that opening weekend, giving you just, you know, three and a third against Milwaukee was a concern. And then last week against Indiana, he gave you five innings and both of those outings, he had 75 pitches against Milwaukee, 80 pitches against Indiana. He got you through five. So this was a game where he got you through five and a third. So he did get you into the sixth inning. And a big part of the reason why he ended up being limited was in the third inning. He will go through the third here in a second. But after three innings, he was at 57 pitches. And the problem Evans had was not giving up hits. And he overpowered Dartmouth for a bulk of this game. but case and Evans in this ball game. He walked Suarez to, to open the second and they ended up Suarez ended up scoring. And then he walked Rodriguez to open the third who also ended up scoring. Those are the two runs that Dartmouth put up on the board was in the second and the third Evans giving up leadoff walks. It wasn't his stuff. It was the command of the fastball that sort of eluded him at times in this ballgame if Evans can have because like the final line he gave up two runs on two hits two hits and by the way one of the hits was a little disgusting because it was a bleeder that because LSU was shifted got through the middle on the left side 10 strikeouts through five and a third I mean he recorded case and Evans recorded 16 outs 10 of them were strikeouts I mean the stuff was the stuff is undeniable so 88 pitches 57 strikes I mean that's a fantastic ratio of your total pitches being 57 of your 88 strikes but the walks man the walks to lead off the second and a third you all know the statistic a leadoff walk scores 50 percent of the time and in this case both the second and the third you got down because casein evans gave up those leadoff walks now the third inning was the one that I wanted to talk about because after the leadoff walk, the thing that kind of bit you in the third, I'm pulling up the play-by-play here, so forgive me. In the third, Evans gives up the leadoff walk. Then he goes ground out double and the double scored the run. Now the double was down the left field line. If you remember, if you're watching the game and you Remember the play. It was an opposite field shot down the left field line. And Braden Simpson, who was playing in left, gave chase. And he didn't get a good jump on the ball. And it landed kind of in a few feet from the foul line. But it was a play where Evans was given, or Simpson was giving chase and nearly got it. This is another example, though, of why they really need Chris Stanfield back. I'm glad that with Stanfield out, it's giving Simpson and Reeves an opportunity to play in left field. And so you're building a little depth there. But if I'm being completely honest with you, this is a great example. Not that I never lie to you, but this is a great example of Jay favoring offense over defense. And he wants Simpson and Reeves. He wants our bats in the lineup. this is an instance where a guy like Daniel Harden is a plus defender in the outfield an explosive player And with no Chris Stanfield Harden would be a not even debatable a better defensive option But the thing with Harden is, man, he has explosive power and he is going to be a phenomenal athlete, but he is still adjusting to this level. But I'd argue these are the types of games where you could get Daniel Harden opportunities, right? Because you're playing Dartmouth. you're not playing Tennessee or on the road at Vanderbilt or Mississippi State. So maybe that's something Jay considers, but for now it certainly seems like Simpson and Dardar are the ones that are getting the opportunities in left and will continue while Stanfield's out. But that play there in the third, the double down the left field line, is a play that you assume a plus defender is going to make that play, and Stanfield's a plus defender. If you don't believe me, think about what we just talked about with Axel Reese, the right fielder from Dartmouth, who made two outstanding plays ranging to his left toward the line where he robbed Curiel and Jake Brown of extra base hits that would have been run scoring base hits, RBI base hits. So coming into this season, we looked at the LSU outfield, which was set, right? Left to right, knowing Curiel was moving to center, going Stanfield, Curiel, Brown, and right. And you said, man, that's arguably the best outfield in the country. It's certainly among the best outfields. you have three center fielders in the outfield. You're going to be great defensively. We take Stanfield out and you've seen that a little bit. Now this game was interesting because you did see Curry LDH. So Curry LDH Brown played center and that gave them an opportunity to put Simpson. Wait, forgive me. Hang on. I'm looking at, I want to make sure I have this right. Cause I'm saying Simpson was in left. Hang on. Let me just make sure I have this right. It was Simpson and left. And it was Braun. Forgive me. It was Braun who started right. Braun had typically been DH-ing. So it was an opportunity to get Braun in the field. So Simpson was in left and Braun was in right. They moved Curry out of center in this ballgame. So the – but back to Evans for a quick second here as we sort of deviated and talked about that, the double down the line, which is a play that I think Stanfield probably makes. Well, then you get a ground ball to the second baseman and you get a fielding error on Dardar. He had two in the game. We'll get to the second one in a bit. And so then strikeout, strikeout to end the third inning. But again, the leadoff walk, the double, which I got to believe Stanfield makes that play. And then the error on Dardar. People have asked, a lot of you have asked at this point, like as LSU had the fantastic start at 8-0, is there a weakness on the team? And the thing we pretty consistently talked about here, if you're an everydayer, is the defense at second and in left field. behind Stanfield. Those have been your two weaknesses. And both of those sort of showed up tonight. And so it's hard for me to really be frustrated with Evan's pitch count getting up. As we mentioned, he was at, let me make sure I have my notes. He was at 57 through three, but the walks hurt him. The walks to lead up the second and third, but Dardar's error, not making the play in left. I think those two things also pushed up his pitch count. Now, when Evans gave way to Gavin Guidry, Guidry just continues to be awesome. And the thing about Guidry, he threw 50 pitches in this ballgame, 35 of the 50 for strikes. He went three and two thirds, so he got you home. You burned him for the weekend, but it doesn't matter. You won the game and you proved Guidry can be more than a three or six out guy, which I think we all knew that. But he's a guy that's showing you this could be your path on a Friday night in SEC play. Because if you have a situation like this where Evans gives way to Guidry with a 3-2 lead and Guidry can get you home, awesome. Then you go into the rest of the weekend with Moore Schmidt Saturday-Sunday knowing you haven't even used Sheeran or Fontenot or Garcia or Plog or some of the other key arms that are back there, Williams, Rizzi. I mean, you have dudes that you know can extend and have dominating stuff, both from the left and the right side. So I like what they did tonight, and I think that was intentional. Again, as we do this live, I haven't heard Jay's postgame comments, but I think that was intentional to see how does this look if we were able to give Guidry the ball to get you home and only use two pitchers on Friday to have everybody else to try to win you a series. So I like that a lot. Guidry was awesome in this ballgame. three and two thirds. He allowed just one hit. By the way, the one hit Guidry allowed was a ground ball to the left side where Milam was shaded toward third base. If you watch the play, that should have been a, that was a dribbler. It was a routine ground ball to shortstop, a play Milam makes in his sleep, but Milam was shaded toward third. I know this coaching staff plays defensive alignment a lot and sometimes it works. So it's hard to complain when it doesn't. if you're going to be congratulatory when it does. But that was a situation where the only hit that Gavin Guidry came up was a bleeder through the left side that would have been a routine rollover ground ball. So if you're someone who doesn't like the shift or defensive alignments and say, play it straight up and honest always, then you hated to see that. I'm a little in between. I'm more of the belief like, play your defensive position, but there's going to be times where you're aligned perfectly and it works. And so it's going to be hard to celebrate those if you criticize the defensive alignment when it doesn't work. But Gavin Guidry was awesome in this ballgame. He ended up with five strikeouts. So he recorded 11 outs. And of those 11, five were strikeouts. He did not walk a batter. And to this point in the season, let me make sure I have this right. I'm almost positive that Gavin Guidry so far this season has not walked the hitter yet. Let me just make sure as I pull up his stat line for the season. Because coming in, yeah, here you go. Coming into this game, Gavin Guidry had 11 strikeouts, no walks. So he has five more strikeouts. That's 16 strikeouts and no walks for Gavin Guidry in his four appearances on the season. So it's so good to see Guidry back. Listen, he's not an overpowering pitcher. The fastball isn't going to overpower anyone. But the breaking ball is so good that hitters at this level really struggle with it. And so if he's locating the breaking ball, it's going to magnify the fastball to be better than it really is if guys are sitting on that breaking ball. And tonight was a great example of that. Now, if there's ever a game where Guidry's not locating the breaking ball and has to rely on the fastball, he could get in trouble. We just haven't seen that yet. He has been awesome, and that was fantastic to see. So Tigers win it 5-2. They get home with Evans and Guidry on the game. LSU's two pitchers combined for 15 strikeouts and Evans had the three walks again just two runs on three hits in the ball game is pretty overpowering stuff some of the defensive blunders and a couple of untimely walks in the second the third to lead off the second and the third are the things that led to any of Dartmouth's offense but a really nice night for LSU on the mound okay Let me step aside really, really quickly, y'all. I'll come back and I want to talk about how the offense rallied and what's next for LSU. 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Tigers win it five to two talked about Evans and Guidry their fantastic job getting through this ball game offensively though man it was a real challenge for LSU and sometimes throughout this game they did hit the ball hard but LSU finished this night with just five runs excuse me, with five runs on just five hits. As we mentioned, there were a couple of really hard hit balls. Both Brown and Curiel had the ropes to right field where the right fielder made great plays. But what I really like to see was how LSU, when they needed to, was able to manufacture runs. So let's go to the bottom of the fourth, okay? So LSU's down two to nothing. And the bottom of the fourth is when LSU finally broke through. Now, they had an opportunity to make this a bigger inning, but it started with Dardar's strikeout, and then Braun walked on a 3-1 pitch. Wild pitch, and Braun goes to second, and then third. So you got a runner on third with one out. Simpson draws a full count walk. So first and third, one out. Carraway is called on to safety squeeze. Now, I listen to an everydayer, listen to any of my content for a long time, had a lot of conversations over the years about bunting, and I hate sacrifice bunting. That is giving up an out to advance a runner. Mathematically, it is the wrong play. It is the wrong play. I will always be okay bunting for a hit or to score a run. I will always trade an out for a run, No different than a ground ball to the right side with a runner on third and less than two outs. No different than a sacrifice fly. You will give up an out to score a run. So I'm always good with that. So I loved Carraway getting that bunt down. And then remember that was the play at the plate that they ended up reviewing. Initially, they ruled Braun out at the plate. They review it. And it was a wild play to watch the review because the ball beats Braun, excuse me, Braun beats the ball to home. But the catcher did a brilliant job of blocking the plate with his foot. So Braun's right hand hits the catcher's cleat, never touches home. Well, as Braun's rolling and the catcher's swipe tagging, he never touches Braun. So if you go to the wide shot, you'll see as Braun gets up and is called out, he walks and touches home plate. Well, after they reviewed it, Braun, his hand never touched home plate, but the catcher swipe tag didn't ever touch Braun. So Braun having the presence of mind to get up and go touch home plate is why LSU got a run there, which I thought was fantastic. Look, it was a great, it was a good bunt by Carraway. It was a good break by Braun. It was a good slide by Braun. It was a good play by the catcher to get his foot in the way of the plate. And it was a great presence of Braun to roll out of the way of the catcher and then to touch home plate after the swipe tag had missed him. And then nice job by Jay Johnson to use a challenge right there, which obviously awarded you a run and got you within 2-1. So loved to see that. And then the sixth was the other part of the game that I thought I wanted to highlight here. So LSU gets a run in the fourth, and then they put up the crooked number in the bottom of the sixth. So at this point, you're still down 2-1, but this is where LSU took the lead. And again, on a day where you're not having a lot of success swinging the bat, you have to be able to manufacture runs in other ways. Like you saw it in the fourth when you had a walk, a runner taking two bases on a wild pitch, and then a squeeze play to get a run home. It shows the versatility of the offense. Well, in the sixth, Braun led with the ground out, and then Simpson walked. So now you have a runner on with one out, and Caraway singles to the left side, and Simpson goes to third. So first and third. And this is where Curiel, finally, we saw the big swing that LSU had kind of been waiting on. Curiel comes up with a big knock, the opposite field double down the left field line, which scored two runs. Now, you had an opportunity there to make this an even bigger inning because that's where Jake Brown comes up and ropes one down the right field line on a 3-1 pitch. He gets a center-cut fastball and absolutely crushed it, but hat tip to the right fielder, Axel Reese, who made a beautiful play going to his left to Rob Brown at the extra base hit, which would have scored Curiel, and then York struck out on the full-count pitch afterwards. He was just fooled on a breaking ball and, and struck out looking to end the inning. So you had an opportunity there to, to make that an even bigger inning, but you had a runner on via the walk and you came up with the big hit from Curry L who you know if you watching or listening to the broadcast Doug Thompson talked about it and I thought Doug was really spot on You know Derek Curiel is phenomenal He was the national freshman of the year, and many picked him to be the SEC player of the year. But just look at the standard that we have for Curiel right now. He's hitting 341, and we feel like it's a slow start. and the thing Doug Thompson said on the broadcast was, Curiel just doesn't look comfortable. And I was talking actually to Ryan Terrio on Friday, and many of you know Ryan comes on, former LSU national champion, big leader, comes on my radio show every Friday. And I was talking to Ryan earlier in the day Friday, and he was specifically talking about Curiel and Milam and Jake Brown as three guys who know their lifelong dream of becoming a professional is at their fingertips. And it's easy, I'm paraphrasing here, but it's easy to press when you know that goal is so close because this is it. Like this is your draft year. You're gone after this year. And it's easy to press for the scouts. And Ryan sort of related the experience he had in his junior year in 2001, how it took him a little ways. And he said, look, remember when it was, it was a game at South Carolina. And he just felt, he just got a knock and it was just like he exhaled and the rest of the season he took off. And I have no doubt that's going to happen for these guys. But again, the thing that's really encouraging for this LSU team is even though Mike Milam's hitting 289. It's funny to say it, but Stephen Milam, who has been so awesome throughout his LSU career, is sitting there at 289. Now, Jake Brown had just the absolutely scorching start. He's at 422 right now. But even though Curiel and Milam, who carried so much of your offense a year ago, have had a relatively slow start, Brown's at 422. York's hitting 323. Aaron Beatty's hitting 314. Dardar's at 308. John Pearson, who had a pinch hit AB and walked, is at 455 in his limited opportunities. Braun is hitting 381 on the season. Simpson's at 455. Carraway's at 333. My point is they're hitting up and down the lineup. So you don't have to rely on Curry, Ellen, Mylam to be the be all end all. And maybe that's going to allow them to settle down and relax. I'll tell you something else that I am looking forward to is Chris Stanfield's return. Because I think what will happen when Stanfield returns is what we saw in the opening night, which is to say, I think Stanfield will go to the leadoff spot and Curry, I will go to the two hole and Brown will hit third. I think that's what they'll do. It could hit Brown fourth if he wants to alternate left, right, which Jay likes to do. But remember, if you're in the two hole, generally you're going to see more fastballs. And if you're able to lead off with Stanfield and move Curry out to the two hole, he's going to see more fastballs. I think that'll jumpstart him offensively. Jay gave us an update on Thursday on Stanfield, said still not comfortable swinging the bat. They hope to have him back next weekend. That would be awesome. In the meantime, you're getting a lot of guys experience, which is great. In this game, you got to see Braun in right. Brown went to center. Simpson was in left again. We've seen Reeves play left. So we've seen a good bit there of those guys. And they've gotten some really valuable playing time. Again, Chris Stanfield's played nearly 200 collegiate games with over 500 career at-bats. Like, whenever he's ready, boom, plug and play, he's back in there. I think that's going to open up a lot as well for Curiel and Milam by extension. the one other thing that I got to mention is Dardar's two errors um as we've mentioned you know people have asked you know do you see a weakness on this team I think a lot of people want to see the starting pitching extend but clearly you're you are deficient at second base and in left field especially while Stanfield's not there and you know Dardar had two errors in this ball game on routine grounders and you know I hated to see that um because the error in the third really extended Evans outing and drove up his pitch count and that's ultimately his error in the sixth is what ended Evans's night when they went to Guidry and Guidry came in in the sixth and went strikeout foul out to get out of the sixth but again that Dardar error but for the Dardar error errors Kaysen Evans probably gets through six and gets you into the seventh inning so you know I know Jay Johnson wants this is this is Jay he wants you Jay wants um he he is going to favor um offense over defense forgive me if you're watching live on YouTube I just realized I didn't have the I just have the right graphic right there. My apologies. I had the wrong graphic right there, the whole show. Anyway, my apologies. Jay is always going to favor offense over defense because if he wanted defense, then Jack, what we've seen is they'll make late inning replacements like they did again in this ballgame where Jack Ruckert went and pinch ran and then went in at second base. And that's probably what they're going to do. LSU gets a lead late in the game. Jack Ruckert's going to go in at second and play defense. In the meantime, they're trying to build a lead by having Dardar in there for his offense, but he's got to be better defensively. Only if he becomes a real liability defensively will they make a change there. And we've seen that in the past where you will sacrifice a bat at a premium position for an elite glove. You know, when some of the obvious examples we've talked about over the years are, you know, a guy like Andrew Stevenson hit 180 as a freshman, but played in center field because he was basically like two outfielders. You know, Austin Nola as a freshman went in at shortstop when he was sub 200 because Paul Maneri wanted to turn more double plays to remove LeMay Hugh to second. That's a famous one. Alex Malazzo, you know, when he was a sub 200 hitter, Jay had him catching because he was an elite defensive catcher. So there are those examples. And I'm not saying they're at that point right now at this early point of the season, but you do have that option with Jack Ruckert as a better defensive option at second base than Dardar. If they get to the point where they feel like the defense is a liability, they could make that change. In the meantime, I think they'll stick with the status quo, which is to say Dardar will play second, so his bat's in the lineup. And when they get a lead late in the game, Ruckert will go in and play defensively. So Tigers win 5-2. They'll be back at the box on Saturday. And they'll play Northeastern. and we didn't give you a full-on preview of Northeastern team that was a 49-win team a season ago, but lost everything. I mean, lost their entire starting rotation, started this season 0-5. They lost to Grand Canyon, Nebraska, Iowa, swept in a two-game series by Minnesota. They were great last year. They were 49-11, 25-2 in the CAA last year. They made the Starkville regional. That's a good college baseball team, but they lost everybody from a year ago and coming into this weekend, they were hitting just two 15 as a team. Let me say that again. They were hitting just two 15 on the season and their staff ERA is 15, a staff ERA of 15. So this is a Northeastern team. That is a bar cry from the 49 and 12 team or 49 and 11 team from a year ago that made NCAA regional play. So Tigers should, should have their way on Saturday behind Cooper Moore. And of course, whenever that game goes final, we'll be here talking about it on Locked on LSU. Hey, thanks so much for hanging out with us. If you're watching this live on YouTube, love you. Thank you so much for being here. Please smash that like button, subscribe to the channel, hit the bell so you're notified whenever we post a new video. If you're watching or listening on demand, thank you as well. Podcast, please subscribe on your favorite podcast app, rate us, leave a review. and please be sure to let a friend know that if they love the tigers we got you here every single day for locked on lsu it's your team every day
