Opening Weekend Lineup and Rotation Projections for LSU Baseball
We're nearly 48 hours away from the start of the 2021 LSU baseball season at the Box. Opening weekend is a tradition like any other in sports.
However, this opening weekend will look a bit different as weather conditions and traveling issues have forced the program to push back the start of opening weekend from Friday to Saturday. LSU will take on Air Force at 1 p.m. Saturday, Notre Dame at 12 p.m. Sunday and Louisiana Tech at 6:30 p.m. on Monday.
It's a little bit of a whackier schedule in terms of fitting all three teams in but there is a much clearer sense of what the pitching rotation and starting lineups will look like for the first handful of games. Here's where it all stands heading into Saturday's opener against Air Force.
Pitching Rotation:
Saturday- Jaden Hill
Sunday-Landon Marceaux
Monday-AJ Labas
There are no surprises here as coach Paul Mainieri has really been hammering home these three as the starters since the fall. The Tigers are hoping to get three or four innings out of Hill on Saturday, four to five out of Marceaux on Sunday and five to six out of Labas on Monday.
Hill is perhaps the most exciting pitcher in all of the SEC, a group that includes several enticing prospects including Vanderbilt's Kumar Rocker. The rising junior is a potential top five pick and will be the team's ace in 2021 after throwing 17 scoreless innings last season as a reliever.
He's battled injuries and has yet to throw in a true SEC environment but everything we've heard about Hill thus far leads to believe he can be a special player for the Tigers this season.
"I just needed to build stamina, work out extra hard and train differently. Really focused on long tossing a lot," Hill said. "If I conserve, I'm not getting hitters out so my goal is to give 110% every single pitch."
Marceaux and Labas are two veterans in the starting rotation who Mainieri believes help make up one of the top rotations in the SEC.
"If you don't have three quality starting pitchers like we have, you can't compete in the SEC this year," Mainieri said. "This league is gonna be filled with first round pitchers. I think all three of our starters are capable of matching up with a really great pitcher on the other team and hold them to a low run game. It gives us a great fighting chance to win each day."
Starting Lineup (no paritcular batting order)
1st- Tre Morgan
2nd- Cade Doughty
SS- Drew Bianco/Zach Arnold
3rd-Will Hellmers
C- Alex Milazzo
LF-Gavin Dugas
DH-Cade Beloso
CF-Giovanni DiGiacomo
RF-Dylan Crews
The latest information from Mainieri on local radio show Off the Bench appears to be that the freshman Hellmers will earn the start at third while Bianco and Arnold will share duties at shorstop. Hellmers just recently rejoined the team after being subject to COVID-19 protocols but must've really impressed Mainieri and the coaching staff in the few days he's been back with the program.
"He's a really talented kid, has great skills as a defender and I think he hits well," Mainieri said.
He also hinted that the veteran Bianco would be making the move back to the infield and must've liked what he saw over the last week. At the end of the day, what Mainieri has liked to do, at least in the early weeks of the season, is really toy with the lineup.
It's likely we see a bunch of different lineups before conference play heats up. Another position to keep an eye on is left field, where we gave the projected nod to veteran Gavin Dugas. It very well could be Beloso in left field but he'll start as the designated hitter in favor of a slightly more athletic Dugas.
The rest of the lineup seems pretty set in stone at the moment and should make for a really exciting group in Baton Rouge this season. Check back Friday for a more in depth preview of opening weekend from Mainieri and the players.