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Critics complained about the LSU baseball team’s 2014 schedule, touting that the Tigers’ non-conference slate was weak and devoid of matchups with legitimate big-conference competition.
The same thing can’t be said about LSU’s slate in 2015. The next time the Tigers take the field, they will be playing one of the most challenging schedules in America.
LSU coach Paul Mainieri unveiled the Tigers’ 2015 schedule this week, a challenging season of games that will test LSU throughout the year.
The Tigers will open the season on Feb. 13-15 with a three-game home series against 2014 NCAA Tournament team Kansas.
From there, LSU will also face Boston College, Southeastern Louisiana and Princeton. The headline of the Tigers’ schedule will be from March 6-8 when the team plays in the Houston College Classic at Minute Maid Park. While there, LSU will be pit against Houston, Nebraska and Baylor on three-straight days.
The next week, LSU dives right into SEC play and takes on 2014 SEC Western Division Champion Ole Miss, the beginning of the always-grueling 30-game SEC slate.
“I think our schedule will be very challenging,” Mainieri said. “I think it really will force the Tigers to put their best foot forward from the beginning of the season to the end.”
For the Tigers, the challenges will begin from the first pitch of the season. Against Kansas, the Tigers will be facing a club that finished 35-26 last season and advanced to the Louisville Regional.
Mainieri said that in his tenure at LSU, the Tigers have historically played smaller-tier competition in the first weekend of the year. The Jayhawks will be an exception to that – a team capable of coming to Baton Rouge and winning the series.
“This may be the toughest opening series we’ve had in my nine years here as a coach,” Mainieri said. “We’ve had some other tough ones like Maryland a couple years ago, but Kansas is really an up-and-coming program. They gave a lot of fits to some SEC teams. … We will have a great series opener next February.”
The following two weekends, LSU will play Boston College and Princeton for a pair of home series. The Eagles finished 22-33 last season with a 10-20 mark in ACC play. Princeton also struggled, finishing 14-26 last year with an 8-12 record in Ivy League play.
But the gem of the Tigers’ schedule will come in Texas at the Houston College Classic. During that three-game weekend stretch, the Tigers will get a chance to strike revenge on Friday night against Houston, the team that defeated LSU on two-straight days last season to win the Baton Rouge Regional.
LSU will also be pit against traditional power Baylor and upstart program Nebraska during the weekend. The Bears struggled last season and posted just a 26-31 record with an 8-15 mark in Big 12 play. The Huskers were much better and posted an 18-6 record in Big 10 play, enough to advance to the NCAA Tournament.
“For the first time, we’re going to Houston to play at a major league ballpark – the Houston Astros Minute Maid Park,” Mainieri said. “We will have a round-robin tournament. It is a very exciting schedule outside of conference play.”
In league play, LSU will play home series with Ole Miss, Kentucky, Auburn, Texas A&M and Missouri. The Tigers will travel to Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State and South Carolina, which is the final series of the season.
Always a fan of history, Mainieri said he hopes to win the SEC Championship on South Carolina soil – something the team has done once during his tenure.
But to get there, LSU will have to overcome a slew of hurdles – many more than the team has had in years past.
“We open up with Ole Miss (in SEC play), a team who played in the College World Series last year. They are a big rival of ours,” Mainieri said. “We finish the season at South Carolina. Maybe history will repeat itself and we can clinch another SEC Championship in Columbia like we did a couple of years ago. In between, it will be a very demanding grind of an SEC schedule.”
MAINIERI UNVEILS TALENTED FRESHMEN
In addition to the challenging 2015 schedule, Mainieri introduced the future of his program – a recruiting class widely regarded as the best in the nation.
The Tigers’ coach introduced its 12-player class to the media, a group of freshmen headlined by five players who were selected in the 2014 MLB Draft but opted to return to school.
The highest-drafted Tigers’ signee is left-handed stud pitcher Jake Latz, who was an 11th-round pick of the Toronto Blue Jays.
Also enrolled are catcher Mike Papierski (16th-round pick, Toronto Blue Jays), lefty pitcher Mac Marshall (21st-round pick, Houston Astros), righty pitcher Jake Godfrey (21st-round pick, Atlanta Braves) and shortstop Grayson Byrd (39th-round pick, Atlanta Braves).
The class is considered by most analysts as the best in the country. Mainieri said he doesn’t believe in rankings, but added that the Tigers’ focus was to boost its pitching.
The coach believes that Latz, Marshall and Godfrey will all be able to contribute in 2015, joining retuning arms like Jared Poche’, Kyle Bouman, Zac Person, Parker Bugg, Brady Domangue and Alden Cartwright to make up a staff that Mainieri hopes will be among the best in the SEC.
“Our top priority was we needed to add to our pitching staff some power arms that we thought could really make a difference,” Mainieri said. “And I feel we accomplished that goal as well as we could possibly have dreamed of doing. We’ve got a few guys that have the potential to be the next Kevin Gausman or Aaron Nola for us.”
