Tonight's game was lost in first 2 innings...

First inning, LSU puts together 3 hits and manages to not score due to White failing to tag up, and then White running past 3rd and being thrown behind. That could be on 3B coach, I never saw a view that showed whether he was telling White to make a turn or stop at 3rd...but either way, that's 2 base running blunders. It's extremely rare to have 3 hits in an inning and a 390 ft fly ball and manage to not score, but we managed to do it.

Second inning, we get Braswell and Kling on base, then they gift us a run with an error on a sacrifice bunt. 2nd and 3rd no outs. Milazzo just barely misses and fouls off 3-4 pitches before taking strike 3. Jones, the new leadoff, comes up and takes a few giant hacks before striking out. White hits a soft ground ball to first and the threat is over. Awful at bats. Ground ball to shortstop or second base, fly ball anywhere in the outfield...so many ways to score a run, and we got guys up there swinging out of their shoes unsuccessfully.

A good team has a MINIMUM of 3-4 runs after that second inning, maybe more. Then all of a sudden, that starter is leaving the game in the 3rd or 4th instead of going 6 good innings. You dig deeper into that bullpen, then tomorrow they don't have any of their top arms left, or you've at least won game 2 if they choose to use their back-half of the bullpen guys. LSU out hit TN by 4, walks were even, and LSU had less strikeouts...still manage to get outscored 3-1 by not getting the job done when it counts.

This LSU team has just simply been finding ways to lose games. It's honestly impressive that they've found so many ways to choke in high leverage situations and lose winnable ball games. Excessive walks, 2 out errors with runners on base, failing to move runners over with bunts, never coming through with runners in scoring position, never making teams pay for mistakes and/or errors. All the little things that average teams can do well to become really good, or that good teams can do well to become great...we are awful at. At this point, there's really nothing you can point to as strengths, outside of occasional pitching performances from Jump, Holman, or Herring.