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Column: Retracing some steps through a memorable year | by Carl Dubois on Jun 27, 2009 at 12:04 am |  | |
The Web site Rivals.com named Paul Mainieri its Coach of the Year after the 2008 baseball season. Collegiate Baseball named Mainieri its 2009 Coach of the Year before you went to bed Friday night.
Let's take a look at some of what happened between those two awards.
LSU catcher Micah Gibbs left the country with Team USA, which won all 24 games on its way to a gold medal at the World Championships last summer.
Think about the run Gibbs experienced. He played for the winning team throughout LSU's 23-game winning streak, had a 3-3 record to end the season, then was an important contributor on the 24-0 team in international play.
That's a 50-3 record to end a full spring and summer of organized baseball.
Then he played for an LSU team that won the national championship with a 56-17 record.
Since that infamous tie with Georgia in April 2008? LSU is 82-20.
The summer of 2008 wasn't all good news. The draft took Jared Bradford, Matt Clark, Michael Hollander, Blake Martin and Ryan Verdugo. North Carolina sent LSU home from Omaha. Central Florida took coaches Terry Rooney and Cliff Godwin from the Tigers.
Mainieri added David Grewe, who left his job as Michigan State head coach. Mainieri promoted Javi Sanchez and Will Davis to more prominent roles and added 2008 senior Kyle Beerbohm as a student assistant coach.
The Tigers lost players to transfers and new roster limitations.
Louis Coleman let the Major League Baseball signing deadline pass in August and returned to school for his senior year. A few weeks later he was the losing pitcher in the third and deciding game of the best-of-three Purple-Gold World Series,
LSU lost pitcher Jordan Brown to injuries in January.
The SEC coaches picked the Tigers to win the conference. LSU was ranked No. 1 in Collegiate Baseball and USA Today/ESPN preseason polls.
LSU set an attendance record on opening night of the new Alex Box Stadium. The record would be broken, again and again.
The Tigers opened the ballpark and the season with a nine-game winning streak.
Illinois won a series at LSU in March. The Tigers lost 10-9 to UL-Lafayette. Less than a week later, they barely beat Northwestern State, 2-1.
LSU lost 8-7 at Tulane. At home in April, the Tigers lost 3-1 to -- wait for it -- Nicholls State.
After winning their first five SEC series, the Tigers lost a home series to Tennessee, ending it with LSU's only losing streak of the season: two games.
Let me repeat that. The longest losing streak of the 73-game season was two games, and it happened once.
(It was also the only losing streak of that 82-20 run the Tigers are currently on dating to April 2008.) That's remarkable. It's almost unbelievable.
LSU didn't lose another SEC series. The Tigers won all five road series in the SEC.
After LSU didn't turn a 6-4-3 double play in the first 40 games of the season, Mainieri made a good team stronger by putting freshman Austin Nola at shortstop, moving D.J. LeMahieu to second base and Ryan Schimpf to left field (and first base at times).
The Tigers won 28 of their next 33 games.
During that run, which ended only when the season did, they won the better half of a share of the SEC championship with Ole Miss by virtue of a series victory against the Rebels during the regular season.
Coleman was voted SEC Pitcher of the Year. Matty Ott was voted SEC Co-Freshman of the Year on his way to the LSU record for saves in a season. Mainieri was voted SEC Coach of the Year.
LSU lost the SEC tournament opener. LSU won the SEC tournament five games later.
That five-game winning streak turned into a 14-game streak that lasted until Tuesday, when Texas tied the best-of-three College World Series championship series with LSU at one game apiece.
The Tigers won the school's sixth baseball national championship the next night. Jared Mitchell was voted Most Outstanding Player of the CWS.
Mainieri gave his family its second national championship. His father led Miami-Dade to the 1964 title at the Junior College World Series.
LSU senior outfielder Nicholas Pontiff gave his family a second national championship, joining the one his late brother Wally won with the Tigers in 2000.
Nick Pontiff was one of 10 Tigers who played in Omaha this week to end in style a championship quest that began under Smoke Laval and his staff, who recruited or coached them. The rest: Paul Bertuccini, Ryan Byrd, Nolan Cain, Coleman, Blake Dean, Buzzy Haydel, Chris McGhee, Sean Ochinko and Ryan Schimpf.
The rest were recruited by Mainieri and his assistants, by Les Miles and the football program, by the LSU mystique, by the hold of purple and gold upon Louisiana boys who grow up dreaming of winning it all in Omaha -- a dynamic that began under Skip Bertman and continued through the Laval years and the three years Mainieri has been in charge of the program.
Gibbs grew up near Austin, Texas, but learned to love LSU before becoming a teenager. He went to an LSU baseball camp in 1998 and fell hook, line and sinker when the Tigers won the 2000 national championship. Nine years later he helped LSU win another.
Mainieri took what he inherited, endured a 2007 season with no postseason play, parted ways with some players, promised he would bring in players who would give the program a chance to have success -- and turned the mix of old and new into a 2008 College World Series team.
Then he molded and tweaked a 2009 national championship team.
Mainieri takes defeat hard. You can see it in his face. It stings him. It burns him. It hurts him. In the moment, he has no poker face.
Sometimes he coaches with his heart. It worked some magic his first two years at LSU. This year he coached more with his head, especially in Omaha, and because he had a mixture of players best suited for that approach, the Tigers shifted gears and turned a good team into a great team.
Don't think it didn't tug on his heartstrings. He feels all of the emotions of winning too.
This year he felt them 56 times, most recently in a game that won LSU its first national championship since 2000.
It's three years to the day since Bertman formally offered Mainieri the job in person, on campus, and Mainieri accepted. Sunday will mark exactly three years since Bertman introduced Mainieri as LSU's baseball coach at a news conference in Baton Rouge.
During his introductory remarks, Mainieri said, "The goal is to return LSU to the pinnacle position in college baseball."
Done.
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Carl Dubois began covering LSU sports on a regular basis in 1999. He will take Sunday off from what became a busy freelance schedule the past few weeks, so feel free to post your favorite memories of the 2009 season below and share them with other fans. There are plenty left to choose from, and some of them you and you alone know well enough to tell. They're yours. You can contact Carl by writing carl1061 'at' gmail.com.
Column: LSU not a surprise national champion | by Carl Dubois on Jun 26, 2009 at 7:28 am | | |
In some ways, everyone at the 2009 College World Series lived up to -- or down to -- expectations.
Southern Miss was two-and-barbecue, what Omaha traditionalists expect from a first-time CWS participant.
North Carolina, there for the fourth consecutive year, and first-time participant Virginia extended the ACC's streak of years without a national champion to 54. Those guys from Wake Forest's 1955 team could pop the cork on the champagne bottle and drink up once more (gratuitous Miami Dolphins reference).
Arizona State and Cal State Fullerton are frequent enough visitors to Omaha to put the CWS on the calendar every December when they go to Barnes & Noble to buy a new one, so it surprised no one they were there. That neither made the final series, again, is a testament to how difficult it is for programs with multiple national championships to add to the trophy case.
Arkansas, which lost eight consecutive SEC games down the stretch, reminded us you can get there by getting hot at the right time. Nobody really expected the Razorbacks to win it, and the right SEC team was indeed the last to leave town.
Texas came within a single victory of living up to the selection committee's seeding of the Longhorns as No. 1 for the postseason. Then, Texas did what every No. 1 seed has done since the first to have that designation (Miami in 1999) won the CWS. The Longhorns failed to win it.
Their coach, Augie Garrido, found his way to Rosenblatt Stadium again, found a path to the final game again. You'd like to see what he could do with the Bad News Bears.
LSU (56-17) won more games than any other team in the country, started and finished the regular season ranked No. 1 in at least one poll, and turned the most individual CWS experience in the eight-team field into a championship. It's entirely possible the Tigers didn't see a better team than Rice after defeating the Owls for the right to go to Omaha.
Tom Shatel and others at the Omaha World-Herald continued to write of the love affair between LSU fans and the city, an updated version of the play and film "Same Time, Next Year." The rest of the year, partying without the other will in some ways feel like bittersweet, subtle infidelity to the purple and gold and the barstools at Barrett's Barleycorn.
LSU beat Virginia, beat Arkansas twice and sandwiched victories against Texas around a lone defeat in Omaha, a humbling loss in a pitching gem that was yet another reminder of how quickly the game can humble you and break your heart. The 14-game winning streak over, the Tigers went out the next day and made everything right again.
Not everything went according to script. Anthony Ranaudo had to spend most of his time in Nebraska eager to get back on the mound after not pitching like the better version of himself the first time around. LSU won in Louis Coleman's first start, but Coleman wasn't the winning pitcher after giving up five solo home runs.
The best defense of LSU's six national championship teams was almost perfect at the CWS, and yet the most valuable player on the team, the rock-steady catcher Micah Gibbs, was the one to make the lone throwing error. It was followed by the only other error, a catcher's interference call later in the same game -- the loss to Texas. Without Gibbs, the Tigers never make it to Omaha, and we suspect the error two-step is one of those things only the pages of history will remember in 10 and 20 years.
What the Tigers proved is what they'd been saying about themselves all season, that when this guy or that guy was not performing up to par, others would step forward to "pick him up." They all had their turns helping LSU win the national championship.
The Tigers won without a Coleman victory in the best-of-three championship series. They won without a save from Matty Ott, who was the winning pitcher in Coleman's final start. Maybe that's another definition of a closer.
The way the two, Coleman and Ott, were linked this season, perhaps it's best that way. One probably wouldn't have had the chance to thrive without the other, and so the SEC Pitcher of the Year and the SEC Co-Freshman of the Year get to celebrate a championship they played major roles in winning.
Jared Mitchell hit the first-inning three-run homer Wednesday to get LSU off to a good start, and the first-round draft choice of the Chicago White Sox was voted the Most Outstanding Player of the College World Series. A change in the batting order for the final game put a lot of pieces together to help make that, and more, happen for the Tigers.
With each passing day at the CWS, LSU looked like a team that had all of the ingredients. Coaches looking for weaknesses really couldn't find a significant one, and the Tigers largely played that way.
How large? Six national championships large. Big, tall dogpile in the middle of the infield large. Update the Intimidator large.
When it ended, everyone had to go home, or to summer leagues, or to professional baseball or some version of the first day of the rest of their lives. You can't stay in Omaha forever, except in folklore and memories and tall tales that get taller with time.
This championship requires no embellishment. LSU played like the best team in college baseball, and the Tigers won its national championship.
There are settle-it-on-the-field postseason games that put to rest the offseason arguments. LSU's 11-4 victory Wednesday against Texas was that kind of game.
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Carl Dubois began writing about LSU sports on a regular basis in 1999. He went to bed at a reasonable hour Thursday night and got up early, way too early for a sportswriter, to bang out this CWS wrapup column. As you read this sentence, he is probably drinking coffee. You can contact Carl by writing carl1061 'at' gmail.com.
Champions: Tigers win sixth CWS with 11-4 victory | by Carl Dubois on Jun 25, 2009 at 1:10 am | | |
This team, LSU's sixth to win a baseball national championship, will keep you busy for some time refreshing, archiving and retelling your favorite snapshot moments of the program's return to elite status.
And that's just the sights and sounds on display Wednesday night in Omaha.
The Tigers jumped out to an early lead against Texas, then let the Longhorns tie the score before LSU shifted gears with seven unanswered runs for an 11-4 victory and the school's first College World Series championship since 2000.
“I’ve dreamt my whole life of having this moment,” LSU coach Paul Mainieri said. “It’s almost surreal.”
LSU (56-17) ended the inaugural season of the new Alex Box Stadium by winning a national title in the penultimate season for Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium, making it seem like Alex Box North all over again.
Senior pitcher Louis Coleman was on the mound for the first out of the new Alex Box in February, then closed out a season of milestones and transitions by getting the last out and throwing his glove high in the air in celebration.
A dogpile quickly followed.
Four other seniors -- Buzzy Haydel, Derek Helenihi, Chris McGhee and Nicholas Pontiff -- finished the game on the field with Coleman. Chad Jones and Jared Mitchell became the first student athletes to play for a BCS national championship football team and a national championship baseball team.
Mitchell, whose three-run homer in the first inning helped LSU take a 4-0 lead after two innings, was named Most Outstanding Player.
Texas (50-16-1) failed in its bid for a seventh national championship, enabling LSU to tie the Longhorns for second place in Division I history with six.
“LSU is a very talented college baseball team,” Texas coach Augie Garrido said. “I don’t think we lost the tournament. They won it. It was a well deserved championship for LSU.”
Texas has made a strong case for itself as the team of the decade at the CWS, with championships in 2002 and 2005 and runner-up finishes in 2004 and 2009. LSU, which won five titles from 1991-2000, had gone eight years without winning a game in Omaha before an elimination-game victory last year against Rice.
Before the game Wednesday night, Mainieri said it would be nice to update the Intimidator, the huge billboard at the old Alex Box Stadium listing those five national championships. He seemed to be suggesting LSU officials would see fit to move the iconic to the new ballpark if its history lesson featured fresh material.
Speaking of long waits, LSU fans remember the football program went 45 years between the 1958 and 2003 national titles. That's how long it was between Demie Manieri's championship run with Miami-Dade at the 1964 Junior College World Series and his son's celebration Wednesday night in Omaha.
“As we were getting the outs in the ninth, my thoughts were with my family,” said Paul Mainieri, who tearfully hugged his father immediately after the final out.
“My dad won this championship 45 years ago at the Junior College World Series. The Mainieri family has gone 45 years without a championship.”
LSU took care of that with another display of the ingredients that made it a preseason and postseason No. 1 team. The Tigers scored seven runs with two outs Wednesday night, and 14 of their 19 runs in the three-game championship series with Texas came after the second out of an inning.
Sean Ochinko was 4-for-5 with three RBIs and two runs scored, including a ninth-inning leadoff home run. Michell drew a walk to lead off the sixth, and Mikie Mahtook's double drove him in for a 5-4 lead, and the Tigers were on their way.
Anthony Ranaudo (12-3) started and won despite a 43-pitch third inning in which he struggled and gave up two runs and a fifth-inning that featured a two-run homer by Kevin Keyes for a 4-4 tie.
Ranaudo left with one out in the sixth inning and LSU leading 9-4. He gave up four runs on eight hits and five walks, and he struck out four.
“As the starting pitcher, the three-run home run in the first gives you a lot of room to go and compete and throw strikes,” Ranaudo said. “I didn’t have my best stuff today. That has been the story of the season for us: When the pitchers didn’t have their best stuff, the hitters picked them up, and when the hitting wasn’t going, the pitchers picked them up.”
Jones relieved Ranaudo and recorded five outs, two of them on strikeouts. Coleman pitched the last two innings and struck out four, including the last three batters of the game.
D.J. LeMahieu and Micah Gibbs each had two hits for the Tigers. Ryan Schimpf drove in two runs.
Mitchell was asked if there was a better way he could end his college career. He's expected to soon sign a contract with the Chicago White Sox, who selected him in the first round of the draft earlier this month.
“If there is a better way, write the story for me,” Mitchell said. “It’s been so much fun -- to accomplish something like this with these players.”
Brandon Workman (3-5) took the loss for Texas in relief of starter Cole Green. Garrido used four other pitchers in the game.
The Longhorns wasted bases-loaded situations to end the first and third innings, prompting a reporter to ask Garrido if he thought there was meat left on the bone in the early innings.
“Only if you’re talking about the six runners that didn’t score,” Garrido said. “That could have changed the momentum.
“I’m not willing to pick our team apart. They beat us. They did what they needed to do to win the game.”
Texas second baseman Travis Tucker said the Longhorns were excited when Keyes tied the score, saying they thought they'd continue to roll after that and win the national championship. The Tigers had other plans.
“They answered back,” Tucker said. “It was devastating. They got the momentum back. They’re a great ballclub.”
2009 College World Series
All-Tournament Team
C -- Cameron Rupp, Texas
1B -- Dustin Ackley, North Carolina
2B -- D.J. LeMahieu, LSU
3B -- Kyle Seager, North Carolina
SS -- Tyler Cannon, Virginia
OF -- Kole Calhoun, Arizona St.
OF -- Jared Mitchell, LSU
OF -- Ryan Schimpf, LSU
DH -- Russell Moldenhauer, Texas
P -- Anthony Ranaudo, LSU
P -- Taylor Jungmann, Texas
Most Outstanding Player: Jared Mitchell, LSU
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Carl Dubois began writing about LSU sports on a regular basis in 1999. He watched the game Wednesday night on ESPN and got player and coach reaction from the NCAA's Web site. He wrote this story on his replacement laptop, which has 6 GB -- one for every LSU baseball national championship. He thinks his friend Chris Mensman, an unapologetic numerologist, would find that interesting. Before the game Mensman added the numbers of the date and came up with six. Ever the skeptic, Carl looked for a flaw in the formula and added 6 (for June) + 2 + 4 (for the 24th) + 2 + 0 + 0 + 9 (for the year), and he came up with 23 -- the jersey number of eventual winning pitcher Anthony Ranaudo. Cue "The Twilight Zone" music. You can contact Carl by writing carl1061 'at' gmail.com.
Texas wins 5-1 to force winner-take-all Game 3| by Carl Dubois on Jun 24, 2009 at 1:38 am | | |
Freshman Taylor Jungmann did what a College World Series team with its back against the wall needs: go the distance. Because he did, so will the best-of-three championship series.
On a night when Texas wanted to save its bullpen for a possible third game against LSU, Jungmann pitched his first career complete game Tuesday night in a 5-1 victory that ended the Tigers' 14-game winning streak and ensured there will be a Game 3.
Television coverage is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. CDT on ESPN. Probable starting pitchers are LSU sophomore right-hander Anthony Ranaudo (11-3, 2.87) and Texas sophomore right-hander Cole Green (5-3, 3.07).
Wind is often the prevailing weather component to play a major role at Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium. Rain that delayed the start of Game 2 for 94 minutes -- and the cooler-than-Monday evening that followed -- may have decided the outcome as much before the game as during it.
LSU coach Paul Mainieri elected not to start Ranaudo, turning instead to sophomore right-hander Austin Ross. Ross (6-8) trailed 1-0 before his teammates got to bat, and he didn't make it past the second inning.
“I had no idea the weather was coming. It crept up on us,” said Mainieri, who made his pitching plans Tuesday morning, a few hours after witnessing the effects of a hot, humid Monday night upon the pitchers in Game 1.
“I saw what the weather did to Ruffin yesterday," Mainieri said, recalling the cramps suffered by Texas starter Chance Ruffin in a game LSU won 7-6 in 11 innings.
Ranaudo pitched Friday in a 14-5 victory against Arkansas, and Mainieri wanted him to have another day's rest.
“Ross was charged up to start, and Anthony didn’t think he was starting,” Mainieri said, suggesting the cooler temperatures came through too late in the day for him to ask Ranaudo to put on his game face.
Texas coach Augie Garrido knew the drop in temperature from the time the Longhorns arrived at Rosenblatt to the time the rain-delayed game began boosted Jungmann's chances of pitching nine innings.
“There was the rain, and it played an important part in the game tonight. It took the temperature down. It helped Taylor finish the game. When we got off the bus, it was steamy,” Garrido said.
Players took care of the rest.
“His teammates got him the lead,” Garrido said. “I’ve always thought that the best thing for a curveball is a four-run lead.”
Jungmann (11-3) protected it by holding LSU to five hits and two walks. He struck out nine and lowered his ERA to 2.00 with a smooth delivery that frustrated the Tigers while making his pitch count of 126 seem relatively inconsequential.
The performance gave Texas (50-15-1) a chance for one more comeback this postseason -- a comeback from a 1-0 series deficit with two victories to secure a national championship.
“We've created another bit of drama,” Garrido said.
LSU (55-17) gets one last shot to prevent the most important Texas rally of the season.
“I think we’ll stay around here in Omaha for another day if that’s OK,” Mainieri said.
Russell Moldenhauer and Preston Clark, who was 3-for-4, hit home runs for Texas. The Longhorns survived three errors.
Moldenhauer, who has three homers in the championship series, tied a CWS record in becoming the 10th player to hit four homers in one College World Series. He is the first player in CWS history to hit his first four home runs of the season at the College World Series.
His third-inning homer Tuesday off Ryan Byrd came in Moldenhauer's first official at-bat against a left-handed pitcher this season. He had walks in two previous plate appearances against lefties.
“I was seeing the ball well,” Moldenhauer said of the at-bat against Byrd. “I was laying off the sliders. He was throwing low in the zone. I had a hunch he’d come back inside, and he left it up enough for me to elevate.”
Byrd gave up three runs on three hits and couldn't get the third out of the third inning. Nolan Cain took his place and shut out Texas on three hits on his way to recording 10 outs, but the Longhorns had their 5-1 margin of victory by the end of the third inning.
Daniel Bradshaw finished with three shutout innings for the Tigers.
LSU didn't waste time falling behind. Ross opened the game with five consecutive pitches outside the strike zone. LSU catcher Micah Gibbs threw a ball away to put a runner at second base, and just like that the Tigers' run of error-free games in Omaha was over. Soon, so was the winning streak.
“The start was terrible," Mainieri said. “To walk the first batter on four pitches ... then they were going to sacrifice, and the next pitch wasn’t close. Then the error on Gibbs trying to pick off the runner, and they scored right away.”
Clark hit his homer in the second inning for a 2-1 lead after Jared Mitchell scored in the top of the inning.
“I thought we were very fortunate that they only scored one run in each of the first two innings,” Mainieri said.
Garrido took blame for Jungmann's six-pitch performance Monday night, a blink-and-you-missed-it appearance that featured a walk and a 2-0 count on the next batter before another reliever took Jungmann's place.
“It was my decision to put him in that position (Monday) night. It was a decision made in haste. I put him into something he wasn’t prepared for. He is a pitcher and a real good one,” Garrido said.
Jungmann said he mixed his pitches well, something the Tigers said before Texas had its turn in the postgame news conference.
“I had a good feel for the ball,” Jungmann said.
Before Tuesday night, LSU was 5-0 in Omaha when it had an opportunity to win a national title. Under the old format of a single championship game, LSU won championships in 1991, 1993, 1996, 1997 and 2000.
A lot of LSU fans who have never seen the school lose a true national championship game, one in which both teams had a chance to win a title with a victory, now turn their focus to tonight's game. They've seen BCS national championship games in football for the 2003 and 2007 seasons, plus the five baseball titles.
That could change if Texas continues its comeback magic. The Longhorns, the designated home team for tonight, will have the last turn at bat if they need it.
Ranaudo hopes to shut down their bats, and his teammates said they have confidence heading into the season's final game.
“We have Anthony (Ranaudo), Louis (Coleman) and Matty (Ott) who are ready to go,” Cain said, “and Daniel (Bradshaw) and I are available to get a couple of outs, so we feel confident. This is what we want to play for.
“Someone’s going to be a legend tomorrow. Hopefully it will be us.”
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Carl Dubois began writing about LSU sports on a regular basis in 1999. He watched the game Tuesday night on ESPN and got player and coach reaction from the NCAA's Web site. He thinks tonight's game will be memorable regardless of which team wins, and he still thinks someone unexpected will provide a highlight-video moment. You can contact him by writing carl1061 'at' gmail.com.
Tigers win a crazy one, 7-6 in 11 innings| by Carl Dubois on Jun 23, 2009 at 1:45 am | | |
Raise your hand if you saw that game coming.
Don't elevate the digits if you think the issue is whether anyone anticipated an LSU victory by one run against Texas, which the Tigers accomplished by a score of 7-6 in 11 innings on a hot, muggy Monday night at Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium.
No, the devil is in the details, and Game 1 of the College World Series national championship series threw us a series of plot-point curveballs that combined for more than four hours of compelling, dramatic baseball.
Reality TV has nothing on what unfolded on the field in defiance of all the prefab storylines LSU and Texas spent at least a year setting us up to expect. This was real, and it was real good.
There are probably countless Hollywood scripts, gathering dust somewhere, that feature a player getting off the ground, receiving an IV and making the game-winning play. LSU freshman center fielder Mikie Mahtook walked off those pages, picked himself off the ground after early-innings cramps and, replenished with direct-to-vein fluids, stroked the two-out single up the middle in the top of the 11th to score D.J. LeMahieu with the deciding run.
But really, the rest of it?
LSU (55-16) is one victory away from its sixth national championship after a series of twists that made everyone rethink Texas (49-15-1) and the way these things are won.
The Tigers can wrap it up by winning Game 2, which is scheduled for 6 p.m. CDT, and if this one is another instant classic, the official DVD should come inside an IV bag and be packed amid shredded pregame notes that did none of us any good in trying to guess what would happen.
LSU starting pitcher Louis Coleman patiently worked through 367 nights between giving up the North Carolina grand slam that ended the Tigers' stay at the 2008 CWS and getting on the mound in a position to put LSU within a victory of winning the 2009 edition.
Texas nearly bled him dry with paper cuts, pounding him for five long-ball runs without a grand slam or any other kind of multi-run homer. No, the Longhorns tortured Coleman with five solo shots, two by Russell Moldenhauer.
This was a new and perversely treacherous definition of small ball: a series of solo home runs -- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 -- as maddening as the play-for-one-run, sacrifice-bunt innings Texas and its coach are famous for spinning out again and again at opponents.
Three Texas batters -- the first, third and fifth of the fourth inning -- drove Coleman pitches over the wall to give the Longhorns a 3-1 lead, quite the answer to Ryan Schimpf's first-inning homer for LSU.
His teammate Jared Mitchell, notorious for his struggles against left-handed pitching, drove a two-out, two-run triple off one of the game's best lefties, Austin Wood, to make it 3-3 in the sixth.
No, put your hand down. You didn't see any of this coming.
Texas got this far with late-innings rallies, and yet it was LeMahieu, wearing LSU purple, dropping a two-run double near the left-field corner when the Tigers were down to their last out in the top of the ninth. That made it 6-6 and gave LSU closer Matty Ott a chance to try to stop another magical Texas finish from occurring.
Ott (4-2) hit the first batter he faced, steadily gained confidence in his stuff and recovered to strike out three consecutive batters at one point. The first of those ended the 10th inning; the last two began the Texas 11th.
Connor Rowe, whose game-ending home run Friday night lifted Texas to a comeback victory against Arizona State to put the Longhorns into the championship series, was the last batter to face Coleman three days later -- and he hit the last of five Texas home runs off the LSU senior right-hander.
Ott retired him on a ground ball to second base to end Monday's game.
“Hard to describe the emotions I feel about this game, but I am going to try," LSU coach Paul Mainieri said moments later. "This was the most courageous, never-say-die resolve that I’ve ever seen from one of my teams in 27 years of coaching. That was the definition of team effort, and it will be what I reference when I talk to teams in the future about team effort.”
Texas coach Augie Garrido found himself on the wrong end of what his Longhorns had been doing to opponents this postseason.
“It was an incredible game between two teams that were doing unbelievable things to win a game," Garrido said. “The team that lost the game was going to feel the wrath of baseball. We were that team tonight. It was an incredible performance by both teams.”
Texas used five pitchers. LSU used four.
“Matty Ott was the key to this game, coming in and tossing three closeout innings,” Mainieri said. “That was great, but they were all great. (Chad) Jones coming in and throwing an inning, (Paul) Bertuccini and of course Matty. Our bullpen has been maligned this season; I’m not sure it has been deserved. Our bullpen has been a great asset over the last three months of the season.”
Garrido was and will continue to be questioned about some of his pitching changes.
“In hindsight, if I could take the cards back, I might do that. The decisions I made managing pitching did not work out,” he said.
Texas starting pitcher Chance Ruffin left with two outs in the sixth inning and the Longhorns nursing a 3-1 lead. He gave up singles to Blake Dean and Micah Gibbs, then set down Mahtook with what was Ruffin's 10th and final strikeout of the evening.
Garrido replaced him with Wood, whose 0-1 pitch Mitchell drove to left-center field for the triple that tied the score and escalated the second-guessing about the coach's decision to remove Ruffin from the game.
“My calf was cramping, but that is not what took me out,” Ruffin said. “I was feeling fine, and I fought through. Taking me out was just the decision that was made.”
LSU scored its last six runs after the second out of an inning. Mahtook's RBI single off Brandon Workman (3-4) was the last example and the one that made the difference in the outcome.
“He was throwing hard, and I saw that from the dugout. I made a point to put my foot down early and look for my pitch. He left one up, and I took it up the middle," Mahtook said.
That brought to reality what Mainieri said he thought earlier in the game when Texas was teeing off against a visibly frustrated Coleman.
“I went out to Coleman and said, 'at least they’re solo home runs.' I told my hitters 'We’re going to have to hit to win the ballgame,' but the way the ball was flying around the park I had confidence that we would win," Mainieri said.
LeMahieu hit a two-out solo home run in the seventh to pull LSU to within 5-4 right after Texas scored two in the sixth for a two-run lead. Rowe answered LeMahieu's homer with a solo shot of his own in the bottom of the inning for a 6-4 lead.
That's where things stayed until LeMahieu's ninth-inning double followed a Sean Ochinko one-out single, a Derek Helenihi walk and a strikeout of late-innings sub Tyler Hanover for the second out.
Hanover swung at and missed a pitch that would have been ball three and struck out on a 3-2 pitch that would have been ball four to load the bases. It wasn't the first time LSU helped out a Texas pitcher in trouble.
Ruffin walked Ochinko to lead off the fifth, and Helenihi swung at a 2-0 pitch instead of making Ruffin prove he could still consistently throw strikes. Helenihi's fly ball to left field was the first out of the inning.
Austin Nola made Ruffin work even less, fouling the first pitch in the air near first base for the second out. LeMahieu made the third out with a swinging strikeout.
Ott said fatigue wasn't an issue during his three shutout innings.
“I was feeling good the whole time. We practice and lift weights to keep conditioned. Throughout the season, I told myself that I need to be able to throw three to four innings because I might need to step in and throw later in the season.”
There are no more than two games left this season, and it could end tonight.
It's supposed to be hotter than it was Monday. It's hard to imagine it being more unpredictably dramatic.
-- -- --
Game 2 pitching
It will be a surprise to many if LSU doesn't start sophomore right-hander Anthony Ranaudo (11-3, 2.87) on what some will call three days' rest. Ranaudo came out of the 14-5 victory against Arkansas around 5:30 p.m. Friday, so by first pitch he will have gone four 24-hour cycles between pitches.
In the baseball world, that's three days' rest.
Freshman right-hander Taylor Jungmann is the probable starter for Texas. Jungmann (10-3, 2.21) pitched to one batter Monday night, walking Helenihi in LSU's two-run ninth inning.
Schedule
The remaining schedule for the best-of-three series:
Today
Game 2
6 p.m. CDT
ESPN
Texas (visitor) vs. LSU (home)
Wednesday
Game 3 (if necessary)
6 p.m. CDT
ESPN
LSU (visitor) vs. Texas (home)
.
Carl Dubois began covering LSU sports regularly in 1999. He watched Monday's game on ESPN and got player and coach reaction from the postgame news conference through the NCAA's Web site. He was looking forward to writing this story on a replacement laptop that finally arrived Monday, but Dell sent him the wrong one, and there are issues. He borrowed yet another computer, which he has done for almost all of LSU's 14-game winning streak. You can contact him by writing him at carl1061 'at' gmail.com.
Game Day: LSU vs. Texas for the national championship| by Carl Dubois on Jun 22, 2009 at 12:23 am | | |
The College World Series and the entire baseball season come down to the No. 1-ranked team in most of the polls vs. the No. 1-seeded team for the NCAA tournament.
They are, in that order, LSU (54-16) and Texas (49-14-1), and they're scheduled to begin a best-of-three championship series at 6 p.m. CDT at Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium and on ESPN.
They are, staying with the above order, the programs of note of the previous and current decades at the College World Series.
LSU won five national championships from 1991-2000. Texas won national titles in 2002 and 2005, was runner-up in 2004 and is gunning for the program's third national championship of the decade, its seventh overall.
LSU coach Paul Mainieri has a chance to win his first national title in his third CWS. Texas coach Augie Garrido won three national championships at Cal State Fullerton and is trying to win his third with the Longhorns.
The Mainieri family already has a national championship. Demie Mainieri, Paul's father, coached Miami-Dade to victory at the 1964 Junior College World Series.
“Father’s Day puts everything in proper perspective,” Paul Mainieri said Sunday at a news conference at Rosenblatt Stadium. “Having my dad here means everything to me. Growing up, all I wanted to be was a college baseball coach. My dad won a national championship in 1964, and I’d love for him to witness his son doing it. Saying that, it’s not about me at all. It’s about the kids and this great experience.”
Let's continue with a mostly serious, sometimes lighthearted, sometimes sideways look at the matchup.
On paper ...
In perception and on the stat sheet, LSU and Texas don't appear to have much in common.
The Tigers dwarf the Longhorns in batting average (.318 to .289) and home runs (103 to 45), but LSU's 26 sacrifice bunts are a blip when compared to the 102 by Texas.
The Longhorns play the short game with a consistent devotion, and they've been successful on 71 of 95 stolen base attempts. A speedy LSU team is 112-for-154.
In the decade that made on-base percentage a household term, Texas has an eye-opening 267 walks and 58 times hit by pitch, and then you notice LSU's numbers: 338 walks, 63 times hit by pitch.
If it's on-base percentage you monitor, you already know LSU's .408 makes the .378 of Texas look pedestrian (a walking joke for those of you with the stomach for it) by comparison.
Finally, Texas leads the nation in earned run average at 2.88, while LSU's 3.99 ERA is respectable but not eye-popping.
In reality ...
Mainieri suggested most of the stats above are worth a closer look, especially when they're used to compare LSU and Texas.
“I don’t think the teams are all that different,” Mainieri said. “Our ballparks are built for different things, so their pitching numbers are lower than if they would have played in Baton Rouge. Our hitting numbers are higher because of our ballpark.
“They’ve shown they can hit the ball. Our team is balanced between hitting and pitching. Augie utilizes the sac bunt more than I do. I think he created California small ball. I think the two teams are a lot more similar than what is seen on the surface.”
Best-of-three
This is LSU's first taste of the best-of-three championship series, the third for Texas.
“If you’re looking for pure drama, how can you beat a single championship game?” Mainieri asked rhetorically. “The (best-of-three) series tests consistency and pitching. I think the longer series helps determine who the better team is.”
LSU owns the most dramatic moment in College World Series history: a two-out, two-run homer by Warren Morris for a 9-8 comeback victory against Miami in the 1996 championship game.
Consistency was a hallmark of the last championship won by Texas, which came in 2005 and ended with two victories against Florida that made a third game in the best-of-three unnecessary.
“We have three starters that we have totally depended on all year,” Garrido said, referring to his pitching staff. “From the players’ point of view, in only one game, only one player would have the chance to be used in that role.”
Coleman vs. Ruffin
For this game, LSU senior right-hander Louis Coleman (14-2, 2.68) will start against Texas sophomore right-hander Chance Ruffin (10-2, 3.27).
Both teams were undefeated in bracket play. Both teams have full pitching staffs available.
Team of destiny?
LSU has a season-best 13-game winning streak. The Tigers have either peaked or are peaking at the right time, and we won't know which is the case until the CWS is over.
Coleman hasn't overlooked the amazing stories associated with Texas this postseason. The Longhorns outlasted Boston College 3-2 in 25 innings in the second game of the regional, and in Omaha they twice overcame deficits to defeat Arizona State.
Texas defeated Southern Miss on a game-ending bases-loaded walk in the first round in Omaha. In so many ways, the Longhorns have made a case for the team-of-destiny label.
“They’ve found ways to win and have competed great,” Coleman said.
LSU catcher Micah Gibbs, who grew up near Austin, agreed.
“They kind of scare you. Any team that makes it to the national championship is a team not to be taken lightly,” Gibbs said.
Garrido is clearly having fun trying to explain how Texas continues to do it.
“The way we've been winning, we've added a new assistant coach, David Copperfield,” Garrido joked. “I've been asked if we are going to practice. How do you practice the way we've been winning?
“We are up against a great team that has played the best baseball of anyone so far. They are hitting on all cylinders, but we will just play the game inning by inning, play by play, and hope for the best.”
Analysis
What can I tell you that you won't get anywhere else? Hmm. That's a good one. By first pitch, this matchup will have been sliced and diced and looked at from all the normal angles. Most of you know the storylines and stats.
What's left? I'm going to turn my head sideways and see what falls out.
"Play the game inning by inning, play by play, and hope for the best." That's what he said, right? Garrido and his Longhorns will do a little more than that.
The coach is indeed 70 years old, but he knows what time it is -- literally -- and in every game is aware of the relationship between the hour and the sun setting and the effect the latter can have in Omaha.
If an inning goes by without a Texas player laying down a bunt, regardless of the time or the sun's place in the sky, check Garrido's pulse. Still, the coach knows there are ways to add to the pressure he likes to apply to opposing defenses.
Early in the first Texas comeback against Arizona State, a perfectly placed bunt forced a throw to first base at a time when the setting sun made it hard for the first baseman to see the ball coming his way. The convergence of runner and ball and sunset and oncoming Texas rally assisted the Sun Devils in their unraveling.
Garrido is the kind of coach whose attention to detail takes into account all environmental factors, including how the sun field plays into any situation. Another such coach? Skip Bertman, who before he coached LSU was an architect of one of the most famous plays in CWS history.
One of the requirements for calling for the Grand Illusion, the pickoff play that helped Miami defeat Wichita State in 1982, was that the situation come at dusk, when lighting on the field of play was not at its best.
Much ado about nothing here? Perhaps, but don't think it's an accident if Texas lays down a bunt when the sun could play a role. Just something for you to keep in mind.
It's that Texas tendency to trade an out for a run by applying short-game pressure that will almost certainly prompt Mainieri to continue to put senior Derek Helenihi in the starting lineup at third base ahead of freshman Tyler Hanover.
Freshman mistakes and ankle problems have limited Hanover's play in the postseason, despite his powerful arm. He hit a double and a home run Friday against Arkansas, but look for Mainieri to go with experience at third base against Garrido's style of baseball.
When Helenihi took over for an injured Michael Hollander in 2008, Florida tried to test Helenihi by bunting to third base. Helenihi had an outstanding defensive weekend that, had it unfolded at Alex Box Stadium, LSU fans would be referencing in large numbers today.
Mainieri has a long memory when it comes to Helenihi's abilities against the short game.
That said, Texas won the national championship in 2005 by lulling people into the rhythm of the a-bunt-an-inning approach, pitching superbly ... and then slamming the critical home run when necessary. Garrido's teams require multi-dimensional thinking on the part of opponents.
People talk about Texas and "small ball" as if they're getting a $5 stipend every time they use the term, but the Longhorns hit two home runs in the bottom of the ninth to rally for the last victory against Arizona State.
They've got LSU's attention.
Garrido had a comeback ready when Mainieri wondered how Texas could be considered the underdog when it was the overall No. 1 seed for the postseason.
“The last No. 1 seed to win the national title was in 1999,” Garrido said, referring to the Miami Hurricanes' championship in the first year of the top-eight-national-seed concept.
LSU is not a bad bet to keep Texas from becoming the first No. 1 seed to break that streak. The Tigers have balance, speed, confidence and 13 players who played in the College World Series last year -- and came back on a mission this time.
Texas is in Omaha for the first time since 2005, so no Longhorns had CWS experience until that victory against Southern Miss. No matter, Texas is in the finals, but lacking a sense of unfinished business, the Longhorns might be missing some of the most important fuel driving LSU players.
Coleman probably feels it more sharply than any of his teammates. He gave up the ninth-inning grand slam that lifted North Carolina to a 7-3 victory that ended LSU's stay at the 2008 College World Series.
“I replayed it so many different times. It’s hard to lose the memory as a pitcher,” Coleman said Sunday. “I’ve thought about it, but when I step on the mound it is a totally different ballgame.”
This game, tonight, is ultimately why he came back to LSU for his senior season. This is it. The team of destiny vs. the pitcher of destiny?
If LSU continues its run of error-free baseball at this CWS, advantage Tigers. They win it in two. If not, the Longhorns will be better able to dictate tempo and style, probably force a third game and probably win it in the bottom of the ninth.
Or the 25th.
-- -- --
Schedule
The schedule for the championship series:
Today
6 p.m. CDT
ESPN
LSU (visitor) vs. Texas (home)
Tuesday
6 p.m. CDT
ESPN
Texas (visitor) vs. LSU (home)
Wednesday
(if necessary)
6 p.m. CDT
ESPN
LSU (visitor) vs. Texas (home)
.
Carl Dubois began covering LSU sports on a regular basis in 1999. He thinks it would probably be better for an SEC team to face the 1927 New York Yankees than any team coached by Augie Garrido at the College World Series. Like many of you, Carl will be watching the championship series on ESPN. You can contact him by writing carl1061 'at' gmail.com.
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