I am not aiming this at anyone in particular, but we have what appears to be many football-minded fans trying to use the same logical structures from that and compare with baseball. It is not even April and we are 19-5. We have lost ONE series and dropped a disappointing loss to ULL. Aside from that, we have been pretty much on...one bad game vs. UK and a late inning collapse vs. SC.

Here are reasons as to why we should not panic:

* Let's not forget what we were last season at this time...15-9 and a 3-6 start in SEC play. Derek Helenihi was arguably out best hitter through most of that early stretch. Blake Dean was hardly a household name in his own house.

* Want to go back further? Look no futher than our last national championship team of 2000. That same team with Creese, Barbier, Hawpe, Hodges, Tallet, Theriot, Pontiff, etc. were 12-8 at one point and were swept at home by Houston, losing 3 games by a combined score of 31-11. LSU lost its last regular season game of the season to Alabama, 14-0. They didn't lose again after that.

This is a game of streaks. It's a marathon and a very long marathon. Not many teams in the country get their opponent's best game every time they take the field. LSU, contrarily, does every game and that's the way it will always be. Right now, here's what we must remember:

LSU is hitting .314 as a team. They finished last year at .306. So, if we catch fire, we are looking at a damaging ballclub when it comes to the aluminum sticks.

* Already 52 stolen bases. LSU had 95 total in '08.

* Already 43 homers. LSU hit 100 last season.

*LSU has outhit opponents in 18/24 games.

*LSU's top 3 hitters are:

O'Chinko
LeMahieu
J Mitchell

None of the three were considered LSU's bg sticks last year, for the most part.

*Ryan Schimpf was abtting .265 less than two weeks ago. He's now hitting .304. He's also hit 4 homeruns in since March 8th.

*Blake Dean is hitting only .231, yet 5 other Tigers have more strikeouts than he does, including Jared Mitchell, who is hitting .380. This proves to me that Dean is making contact and pretty soon, split seconds are going to matter and he'll be stroking balls instead of being a tad tardy or just getting under the ball.

* This team that supposedly "cannot hit" is averaging 9 runs a game and the "struggling pitching" is giving up 3.75.

* 9 of LSU's 43 HR's have come from non-starters. Every starter has at least one homerun.

* LSU's new weekend rotation of Ranaudo, Coleman, and Ross has a combined:

- record of 10 wins and 4 losses
- combined ERA of 2.02
- 89 innings pitched in 19 apperances (and Coleman has spent several in relief) equating to
- 119 K's in 89 IP
- Opponents are batting .197 against this rotation

4 starters are hitting under .300 for LSU and 3/4 ended up hitting well above .300 in 2008. Like I said, game of streaks.

THIS TEAM IS GOING TO BE FINE!!! We've won 19 out of 24 and that's with a slumping Dean and Landry.

Mark my words:

LSU's final regular season record will be:

41-15 and 20-10 in SEC play. We'll be ranked 4th in the country and we'll host a regional and a SR. Look this up again in May.

My projected stats (entering SEC Tourney):

1 Mitchell .355 avg 11 HR 44 sb
2 Schimpf .328 avg 15 HR 25 sb
3 O'chinko .408 avg 21 HR 81 rbi
4 Gibbs .302 avg 9 HR
5 LeMahieu .376 avg 9 HR 55 rbi
6 Dean .288 avg 16 HR 57 rbi
7 Hanover .333 7 HR 6 3b
8 Landry .277 16 HR 20 Sb
9 Helenihi .260 5 HR 46 rbi
10 C Jones .316 7 HR 12 sb

1 A Ranaudo 7-2 128 K 2.20 ERA
2 L Coleman 11-1 101 K 1.82 ERA
3 A Ross 8-4 88 K 3.55 ERA