Tigers rolling toward NCAAs

The LSU baseball team is on fire.

For the third-straight weekend, the Tigers swept an SEC series in convincing fashion – pounding No. 7 Kentucky for three-straight games in Alex Box Stadium.

LSU outscored the Wildcats 39-6 in the weekend – a drumming capped with an 11-4 win on Sunday afternoon.

With the victories, the Tigers are now 30-2 on the year and 11-1 in SEC play.

This is the fastest start in the history of the success-filled LSU baseball program.

“It’s a very significant accomplishment to (own) the best start in LSU history,” LSU baseball coach Paul Mainieri said. “But we’ve still got a lot of work to do.”

It’s hard to pinpoint any one facet of the Tigers’ club as the reason for their success.

Statistics show that LSU is doing pretty much everything well at the moment.

Start with pitching – the Tigers’ hurlers have been on fire throughout this recent run of success.

During their current 12-game winning streak, LSU has allowed just 23 runs – a 1.91 team ERA.

A one-two weekend punch of sophomore Aaron Nola and Ryan Eades anchor the pitching staff with a combined record of 12-0 in 16 starts this season.

Against Kentucky, the duo lived up to its reputation, each earning a win against the Wildcats, allowing just two combined runs in more than 15 innings.

“Aaron (Nola) was really the key to the game,” Mainieri said following Friday’s win. “(He) just gave us a tremendous effort.”

“Ryan (Eades) did another remarkable job tonight,” the coach added following Saturday’s game. “I wouldn’t say he was overpowering with his fastball, but he threw an awful lot of strikes and competed hard with every pitch.”

While LSU’s pitchers are busy being stingy, the Tigers’ hitters are routinely hanging crooked numbers on the scoreboard.

LSU has scored 92 runs in their past 12 games – a mark good enough to make the team first in the conference in most major batting statistics.

The biggest reason for the success has been a murderer’s row middle of the batting order glittered with likely First-Team All-SEC performers.

True freshman shortstop Alex Bregman has been a thumper out of the three-hole for LSU all season – setting the table for the Tigers’ power hitters.

Bregman is currently hitting .441 with 18 extra base hits and 31 RBI in 32 games.

If Bregman gets on base, opponents have to pitch to cleanup hitter and 2012 SEC Player of the Year Raph Rhymes, who owns a .350 batting average.

Once through Rhymes, pitchers are faced with college baseball’s best hitter – senior Mason Katz.

Katz has been on fire throughout the season, owning a .436 batting average and a .518 on base percentage.

When putting the ball in play, Katz is doing so with authority, owning 13 home runs and a nation’s best 55 RBI on the year.

Katz is the only player in America to eclipse the 50 RBI mark. His lead over the next-best run producer is 11 RBI.

But while the meat of LSU’s order piles up runs, the top and bottom is producing, too.

Mainieri said this year’s offense is prolific because of its depth.

“We get great at-bats and production from one-through-nine in our batting order,” Mainieri said on Saturday.

So with a dominant start, LSU is turning its attention to the back-half of SEC play.

The Tigers will play road series with Arkansas and Alabama in the next two weekends before returning home to play South Carolina from April 26-28.

All three teams are in the top-half of the SEC standings.

But then again – so was Kentucky before this past weekend’s series.

It didn’t matter then.

Mainieri said if LSU keeps peaking, the team will be prime to make a deep push.

“I’m very proud that we’ve accomplished something that no other LSU team has done,” Mainieri said. “But we haven’t won anything yet. We’ve got a lot of tough ball games in front of us. … Certainly, I’m pleased with the way we’re playing, but we can continue to get better with each game.”

Paul Mainieri