Will Kentucky's Prior Experience in Baton Rouge Help vs. LSU in Super Regional?
LEXINGTON, Ky. — Experience in baseball is often a double-edged sword.
It's easy on one hand to look back at previous games and moments as building blocks to use when similar moments arise later in the season. On the other hand, those opposing teams are doing the exact same thing.
Kentucky is trying to figure out how to walk that balance beam as it prepares to battle LSU at Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge for the second time this season. The Tigers defeated UK twice in a three-game series back in mid-April and will now welcome the Wildcats again after going undefeated in the NCAA Tournament Baton Rouge Regional.
Head coach Nick Mingione has stated multiple times since a 16-6 loss to LSU in game one of the series that there was nothing he could do to prepare his team for the atmosphere at The Box, which has consistently drawn in some of the best crowds in college baseball for years on end. While the environment will be turned up to 11 for the Super Regional, it won't be anything that UK hasn't seen before.
"Great team, great program. I know their head coach well. We're good friends. He's one of the premier coaches in the country," Mingione said following UK's Lexington Regional title win over Indiana.
"I think anytime that you can go somewhere that you've already been, that definitely helps. And I told them, I don't know how to prepare you to have 13,000 people go against you. But we've been there. They have great fans. They're great people. And it will definitely be a different environment now. It's a really good one, but it will go up another level. But the fact that our guys have experienced that definitely helps."
The atmosphere isn't even half the battle, however. LSU, the No. 5 overall seed in the tournament, carries two of the top prospects in all of baseball in center fielder Dylan Crews and right-handed pitcher Paul Skenes. MLB.com's latest 2023 mock draft has Crews becoming the No. 1 overall pick, with Skenes literally right behind at No. 2. Both are also finalists for the Golden Spikes.
Crews (.432/.573/.736) has 95 hits on the season, including 14 doubles and 17 home runs. His absurd 1.310 OPS speaks for itself. He's walked 61 times and struck out just 40. Kentucky made it a point to not let the CF beat it, walking him six times, allowing only three hits.
With the stakes so much higher, can UK pitch around him the same way? Mingione hinted that the answer is likely yes.
"Obviously you look at the numbers, he's a special offensive player, but there's a lot of things that go into that ... there'll be times where, yes, we'll have to attack him and go for him, and there'll be times where we'll just — maybe it might be the old unintentional-intentional walk, or just give them straight intentional walk," Mingione said.
Crews was named the Most Outstanding Player in the Baton Rouge Regional, going 8-for-13 with two home runs and four RBIs. The Kentucky pitching staff will have plenty on its plate.
"We've gone into a series before where you just feel like that guy probably shouldn't even bring his bat, because he's not gonna get anything to hit, you know, but obviously we'll manage that and we'll see all those factors play in and how we'll approach him, but he's definitely a guy that there needs to be multiple conversations about."
As for Skenes (11-2, 1.90), a fellow Golden Spikes finalist, 179 strikeouts and 11 walks across 99.1 innings pitched this season says all it needs to. Opponents are hitting .171 and have collected only 17 extra-base hits all year.
Kentucky righty Austin Strickland explained what makes the 6-foot-6 junior so un-hittable, pointing to an electric heater and the ability to hit spots over and over again:
"When you have a fastball with his velocity and his life and some really quality offerings. One of the things that I look at when I watch him is just how he can repeat and how he can do it so consistently," he said. "Not only does he throw hard, but he's got a fastball that runs a lot. With his ability to control the strike zone like that, it's really incredible."
When working to build a scouting report for Skenes, Mingione and the staff have leaned on the advice of his hitters, who previously faced him and recorded a season-high seven hits and five runs (four earned) in the 16-6 loss. The Air Force transfer still notched 13 strikeouts in his win, one of 13 games that he recorded double-digit Ks.
"We're gonna have to match his competitiveness," Mingione said of the ace.
"If we go about our business, we prepare them the right way — I think we had good success off of him last time — we do the things we do with our coaching staff and our players, these next couple days we'll be able to get ready," UK shortstop Grant Smith of facing Skenes.
The pair of superstars account for plenty of LSU's success, but that doesn't even include the rest of the eye-poppers that are filling out the starting lineup every night. Players like Tommy White (.378/.442/.742) and Cade Beloso (.329/.457/.631) are littered all throughout the batting order.
Still, Kentucky isn't afraid of the challenge. It welcomes the uptick in the environment. It knows what it takes to win a game at The Box, because it's done it before. Even though the Wildcats were run-ruled in that first game, they didn't quit, continuing to hit Skenes and throw some runs on the board.
"You could see the guys got more and more comfortable as that game went on," Mingione said. "I thought that carried over into the Saturday game and then the Sunday game, you know, it was a one run game and we had our chances."
Kentucky did have its chances. It now has three more to make its first College World Series in program history. Game one on Saturday, June 10 is set for 3 p.m. EST and will air on ESPN. Times for games two and three (if necessary) are still to be determined.
Roommates, Kentuckians, Brothers: More on Darren Williams and Mason Moore HERE.
The King of Work: More on catcher Devin Burkes and his MVP honors HERE.
Game recap of Kentucky's Regional-clinching win can be found HERE.
How getting hit in batting practice helps Kentucky HERE.
How hard conversations molded RHP Austin Strickland HERE.
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