LSU vs Texas A&M - Crowdsourced weekend preview

This may be a little abbreviated this week as I've been otherwise occupied with real life things.

Friday 3/17 6pm Central
LSU - Paul Skenes
A&M - Nathan Dettmer (RHP)

Saturday 3/18 2pm Central
LSU - Ty Floyd
A&M - Troy Wansing (LHP)

Sunday 3/19 1pm Central
LSU - Thatcher Hurd
A&M - Chris Cortez (RHP)

We travel to the land that God forgot to open SEC play. The Aggies are coming off an improbable trip to Omaha last season and some befuddling losses to start this one. They began the season with a sweep of Seattle before promptly losing the next three. Those losses came against The Fighting Will Davises of Lamar and the Portland Pilots, all at Listeria Outbreak Park. Their other loss was to a ranked Louisville team in Minute Maid. Also at Minute Maid it took them 7 innings to beat a bad Rice team and 16 innings to beat a good Texas Tech team. They clobbered Lance Berkman’s Houston Christian and then swept Northern Kentucky in less than impressive fashion. Most recently they beat Houston in a game that reunited Jethro Bodean lookalike and former LSU assistant Nolan Cain with a couple of his former LSU recruits Drew Bianco and Zach Arnold.

Notable names on the pitching side include the three starters listed above. Dettmer has been up and down but strikes out more than 1 per inning and doesn’t seem to give up a lot of extra base hits. Wansing, a lefty transfer from Purdue, strikes out even more, walks fewer, and is similarly stingy with extra base hits. Chris Cortez is a sophomore that seems to enjoy letting batters reach base in all manners and subsequently letting those runners score. They have a few relievers they rely on most heavily: Justin Lamkin (LHP) and Evan Ashenbeck (LHP) being the most successful so far. LHP Brandyn Garcia is a transfer from Quinnipiac that we looked at in the portal last year. He’s pitched sparingly but effectively. Brad Rudis (RHP) has an ERA of 0.00 and 3 wins in 5 appearances, but a WHIP over 2. He’s an anomaly and, in my opinion, a ticking time bomb.

On the hitter’s side, they have a couple of guys that followed hitting coach Mike Earley from Arizona State in Hunter Haas and Jack Moss. Moss was picked by some publications as the first team all SEC first baseman in the preseason and while he started the season slow, he’s come on recently. Haas was injured much of the last year at Arizona State but was highly thought of out of high school and performed well as a freshman. A notable name to look out for is Jace Laviolette. The one-time LSU commit flipped to Texas A&M shortly after the coaching changes at each school. He’s got big time power with some swing and miss. A&M has hit 16 home runs with no one person having more than 3. They’re hitting .279 as a team but they walk nearly as much as they strike out (only 2 fewer walks than Ks). They’re going to work counts and take advanced at bats. Similar to us, they will make the starting pitcher work to get deep into games.

Their stats aren’t gaudy, and their schedule was underwhelming, but they have talent and their bullpen lines up with our weakness. It’s going to be a fight and their fans are going to be annoying and their coaches are going to be bitches and we’re probably stuck playing them every single year in perpetuity because the SEC hates us and wants to legitimize them and I hate everything about their whole university and every coach and player and fan associated with them.


The beer of the series is Guinness. Happy St Paddy's Day. Have a nice low calorie, nitrogenized stout, or several. My suggestion is to order your second one as soon as the first one is brought to you. Additionally, even though it's on the wrong part of the island, I'm partial to Bushmill's over Jameson.