Who's Your Daddy Now?

Last year during the Super Regionals, Tennessee's mantra was "who's your daddy?" implying that they owned/would own anyone who got in their way during the tournament. Alas, it turned out that Notre Dame was their daddy as they took down the 1 seed Volunteers. At the time, it was hard for us to talk trash since we lost in regionals to Southern Miss, Kennesaw State, and Army. Over the weekend, LSU adopted Tennessee from Notre Dame officially becoming Tennessee's daddy, taking 2 out of 3, winning the series. 

Once again, I got there too late to get a spot in the student section, so I had to go back to standing room only. I didn't even leave late, I left an hour before game time, but I sat in bumper to bumper traffic for almost 30 minutes. But you didn't even need to see the field to know what was going on; you could hear it and feel it in the stadium. Paul Skenes proved once again why he is an ace in the SEC as if he even needed to do it again. He went 7 full innings, striking out a dozen, and only allowing 1 earned run that should not have been earned. If I'm being completely honest, the hit that eventually scored should have been an error on Thompson, but they ruled it a hit. Even with that 1 earned run, Paul's ERA is still below 1.00. The bats were slow to wake up in game 1. After falling behind 1-0, Gavin Dugas hits a 2 run bomb to take the lead. However, after what appeared to be injury related, Ackenhausen puts the tying run aboard and then throws three wild pitches to advance the tying run to third. Garrett Edwards relieves him in a full count, but Edwards get hit on his first pitch allowing the tying run to cross the plate. He would finish the game with no more runs allowed. But it was what happened the next half inning that really got the Box rocking. Crews pops up, Tommy White grounds out, and Beloso reaches on error to keep the inning alive. So with a runner on and 2 out, there seems to be some hope for LSU to take the lead. Jarred Jones delivers big with a single to advance Beloso to second and then Josh Pearson would get hit by pitch, a stat that LSU must be leading the nation in. So now we have the bases loaded with 2 away, all we need is for Thompson to get on base to score the go ahead run. Well he did much more that, he delivered HUGE with a bases clearing double to take the lead 5-2. Garrett Edwards record the final 3 outs and record the win. The first LSU win over Tennessee since 2019. 

I would dare to say that Friday was even more fun than Thursday. It was more of a back an forth game than Thursday which only saw 2 innings of scoring. On Friday the bats woke up early with Tennessee jumping ahead 1-0 on a solo shot, but LSU quickly answers with 3 doubles to score 3 runs and take a 3-1 lead after 1. In the 2nd inning, Ty Floyd gives up another solo shot to make it a 3-2 game; LSU can't answer. It gets even worse 2 innings later when Ty Floyd gives up ANOTHER homerun, this time it's a 2-run shot that gives Tennessee the lead 4-3; but fret not, LSU answers this time with back to back jacks from Brady Neal (which was mere feet away from) and Gavin Dugas. LSU regains the lead 5-4. Finally, Tommy White hits a sac fly very deep to right to scored Dugas from 3rd. 

We don't talk about Saturday.

LSU is now undefeated in series against the SEC, 6-3 in conference play, and 24-4 overall. I fully expect we remain #1 in the nation. LSU will play Nicholls on Tuesday and then head to Columbia, SC to play South Carolina starting on Thursday.

A few stats from this series:

Dylan Crews went 6-for-11 (.545). He is now slashing .543/.664/.947 for a 1.611 OPS.

Gavin Dugas hit 2 dingers. He is now slashing .333/.504/.714 for a 1.219.

Tommy White, Cade Beloso, Jared Jones, and Paxton Kling also all have an OPS north of 1.000. 

Paul Skenes and Garrett Edwards still have an ERA sub 1.00 and Griffin Herring has an ERA at exactly 1.00. 

That's about it. No one else really hit and no other pitcher besides Paul Skenes stands out, but he only pitched one game. So with that, the series MVP is Dylan Crews.