Preview: No. 7 LSU Baseball Faces Three Game Slate at the Shriners Classic

LSU is off to Houston for its first three game road trip of the 2022 season under new coach Jay Johnson, riding a five game home win streak.

It's a weekend of great importance during the non-conference portion of the schedule as an early indicator to see just where this team stands with other premier talent in another conference. The No. 7 ranked Tigers will take on Oklahoma Friday afternoon at 3 p.m., followed by a Saturday evening matchup with No. 1 Texas and Baylor on Sunday evening.

The Tigers have been an extremely potent offense in the early goings, ranking No. 7 in the country in team batting average at .354, No. 4 in total runs with 109 and No. 4 in on base percentage at just a shade over 49% on the year. LSU consistently puts itself in good positions to score practically every inning and have consistently put the ball in play.

Facing a few really good pitching staffs, including Oklahoma Friday starter Jake Bennett, who has a 0.00 ERA in two starts will be a great test for this offense.

"You got brand name schools so it catches more people's attention," Johnson said. "We may go in there and play great and win all of them but we got a long way to go. We wanna win every game that we play, that's what we're trying to do but there's also and improvement element. I'm excited about the challenge facing a really good pitcher Friday and obviously a great team on Saturday. It's going to be great competition and I know our players are looking forward to it."

Coming into the season the offense was highly touted and is certainly living up to the expectations through two weeks. But college baseball offenses can be volatile from game to game and the real difference for this team that will help them compete against any team is the pitching staff.

Blake Money, Ma'Khail Hilliard and Ty Floyd have been either solid or magnificent in both starts but it's the bullpen that's truly starting to shine. From top to bottom LSU's bullpen has been phenomenal with the group most recently throwing seven shutout innings in relief of Garrett Edwards against UNO.

Devin Fontenot, Eric Reyzelman, Paul Gervase, Grant Taylor and Bryce Collins have all allowed either two runs or less in multiple outings each, gaining much praise from Johnson for their consistency.

"The bullpen continues to be awesome, continues to be a strength of this team. I really believed that it would be and it's baring out," Johnson said. "That was a big time performance tonight by all of those guys."

Johnson and his team believe this weekend is a good benchmark over a three game series to really see where this group stands and how that "postseason feel" will translate on the field.

"We're trying to build a really solid foundation here of how we go about things," Johnson said. "I think that's been really sound so far."

"We're excited to go to Houston and play some of the best competition in the country," outfielder Jacob Berry said. "Kind of see where we stand up with a lot of good players. The goal is to get a little bit better everyday and I think we've done that so far.

The Tigers get started with Oklahoma Friday afternoon will all the games this weekend being available via stream on Astros.com.

(Photo courtesy of LSUsports)