The Month of May

Welcome to Winning Time

Earlier this week, LSU head coach Jay Johnson said something that received a considerable amount of pushback:

I’m not going to say that what he said is literally correct – there are conferences that play good baseball outside of the SEC. Clemson, Florida State, and North Carolina are better than the Tigers. But the spirit of what Johnson said is completely valid. The Tigers are 23-3 out of conference and 7-14 in it. No matter how bad your non-conference SOS is, that’s an absurd discrepancy.

The following are the RPIs of the conference series LSU lost: 24, 18, 3, 20, and 8. There aren’t many teams in the country that can get through that stretch with a winning record, and honestly LSU losing every series during that brutal stretch was a consequence of circumstance. As I have outlined before, they could have easily won two of those series by changing a surprisingly few amount of outcomes.

And they’ve since responded by taking two series that they should have taken against the Tigers of Mizzou and Auburn. They weren’t always pretty but they don’t ask how, they ask how many.

I realize that the doomers will point to the postseason projections that have LSU out of the picture, but they’re only going off the information and data currently available to them. Like most things in life, it is subject to change. The reality of the situation is that LSU isn’t out of it, they never were. In fact, they control their own destiny at this point. Here are the facts:

• LSU’s current RPI is 41.
• LSU is 3-12 against Quad 1 teams, and 13-3 against Quad 2 and 3 teams.
• The top 12 seeds qualify for the SEC Tournament.
• LSU and Ole Miss are currently 7-14 in conference play, above the cut. Those two teams play each other.
• Ole Miss’ RPI is 29.
• Auburn is all but out, and Mizzou is a game behind LSU at 6-15. If it comes to pass, LSU has a tie breaker over Mizzou. Barring a collapse, LSU will make Hoover.
• Alabama is 9-12 in conference play, one spot above LSU in the West standings.
• Alabama’s RPI is 15.
• LSU has 9 regular season conference games remaining. If they make the SEC Tournament and win their opening round game, they will gain an additional 3 games to come out to 12.
• Texas A&M’s RPI is 1.

Given all that information, I’m ascribing a magic number of 7. To secure a berth in the NCAA Tournament, LSU will need to win seven conference games before Memorial Day.

I don’t really think it matters what order or where those wins come from, they just need to find seven wins to get them to 14 conference wins. They can pick up two each weekend and then get one in Hoover, or they can get swept one weekend and still make it if they sweep the other two and get one in Hoover. Or they can limp into Hoover with three and make a deep run in the tournament.

9 to 12 games to win 7.

I didn’t pull that number out of thin air, if they can win seven against Ole Miss (29), Alabama (15), Texas A&M (1) then they’ll more than level out in the RPI standings. Hell, maybe beating Texas A&M alone can put LSU over. If they hit 7 exactly they won’t finish with a winning conference record, but the truth of the matter is that LSU can benefit from some SEC privilege if they can end the season on a positive trajectory. Wouldn’t be the first nor the last time.

And if this sounds outlandish, remember it was just last year that the LSU pitching staff beyond Skenes was an abject disaster. I predicted that unless things turned around, they wouldn’t even make it out of their own regional, and I stand by that prediction. I don’t need to remind you what happened after that.

This year the date is pushed up a little bit, but the situation is the same. It’s May, and it’s time for LSU to turn their season around once again. We don’t judge our seasons based on what happened in March and April, we judge them on what happens after Memorial Day.

Welcome to the month of May. Welcome to winning time. And it starts against the #1 Texas A&M Aggies in Alex Box Stadium Skip Bertman Field this weekend.