Jay Johnson credits LSU bullpen for stepping up

LSU is one of the favorites to win the College World Series as we get underway in Omaha this weekend. For the Tigers, it’s been two superstars — one hitter, one pitcher — garnering much of the acclaim for the special season: super-slugger Dylan Crews and mustached ace Paul Skenes, who both made the massive plays for LSU in Regional and Super Regional play. However, head coach Jay Johnson doesn’t want the contributions of the bullpen to go unnoticed.

At his pre-Omaha press conference, Johnson ran through practically every name among his relief pitchers and credited them for coming in and maintaining the leads that guys like Crews and Skenes are setting up in the early going. So read below Coach Johnson’s long appraisal of the recent bullpen performances here in the postseason for LSU:

“Yeah, I think following the SEC tournament, the regional, the super regional, the last regular season weekend at Georgia, those guys have been outstanding. I think there’s a number of guys that have made a positive contribution to the point where I really don’t want to leave anybody out.

“We had a lightning delay in Game 2 or the winner’s bracket game of the regional, and Thatcher (Hurd) came in and gave us five innings from the fourth to the eighth. You don’t necessarily look at him as a bullpen guy, but he closed out a couple of really big SEC wins and that five innings, 13 strike-out performance against Oregon State is as good as you can do.

“Right behind him is Gavin Guidry, and for me he is the star of the show with that. He is a freshman. He was a two-way player, but his poise, his confidence, his ability to block out what’s going on around him and execute is second to none.

“Then we’ve really, really leaned on Riley Cooper. Though he started Game 3 of the regional, he came in in a high-leverage situation in the super regional and got us three really good innings. I would guess in the last three years there’s not too many people with multiple super regional wins under their belt. Riley has done that.

“Then Gavin came in to close it out again. There’s guys kind of just waiting in the wings that I think are in a really good spot too. Whether it be Javen Coleman, Blake Money got us an inning and a third in the super regional last week. Nate Ackenhausen, huge piece of our team. When he pitches, we win typically.

“I think you could call it struggle. I would just call it, like, life in the SEC. Nobody played a schedule like we did, and it wasn’t going to be perfect no matter how good these guys are. I’m just proud of them for adjusting their preparation, getting through that difficulty, and just getting back to executing.“

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