LSU

Guilbeau: LSU beats weather, then Lehigh

Glenn Guilbeau

BATON ROUGE – LSU did not beat the rain Friday afternoon in its NCAA regional opener at Alex Box Stadium. That came out of nowhere after the top of the first inning and delayed the game from a 3 p.m. start to a 5:27 p.m. re-start.

But LSU coach Paul Mainieri managed the weather as if he was Jim Cantore with the Tigers beating Lehigh, 10-3, in a game that took five hours and 13 minutes, counting the two-hour, 17-minute rain delay. LSU (49-10) advances to an 8 p.m. game Saturday against the winner out of Tulane and North Carolina-Wilmington, which played a late game Friday.

First, Mainieri evacuated pitchers — six of them to be exact as he used seven in all with only one logging more than an inning. Starter Alden Cartwright threw all of 11 pitches and was out of there after retiring the side in order in the first because of the long rain delay.

Austin Bain threw three innings. Hunter Newman (3-0) got in one — the fifth for the victory. Jesse Stallings could have gone two, but he hit a batter to start his second inning. And Mainieri sent him away. Doug Norman, Russell Reynolds and Hunter Devall each pitched an inning to end it.

“I can’t remember who all pitched myself,” Mainieri said as he looked at the box score. “Part of the reason was knowing the weather may change things.”

Knowing that there was a 60 percent chance of rain for Friday afternoon, Mainieri did not want to start either of his top two starters – Alex Lange (10-0, 1.94 ERA) or Jared Poche (7-1, 3.35 ERA) — because of a likely long delay. The pitchers in a game at the time a game is delayed by weather usually do not return when the game is resumed because their arm gets too cold. It is just not usually done. Throws pitchers off their routine— pitching, sitting, warming up, sitting, etcetera.

So Mainieri decided to treat the NCAA regional opener as if it was a mid-week game, meaning evacuate the dugout and bullpen of pitchers. The fact that Lehigh was 25-29 and from a weak conference like the Patriot League fit well onto his weather map.

“It was an opportunity to run a lot of guys out there and get them used to pitching in a NCAA regional,” Mainieri said. “I thought it worked out well. Most of the guys threw pretty well.”

It also gave Mainieri one final teaching moment for Stallings, the inconsistent closer who hit a batter to start the seventh. Mainieri and pitching coach Alan Dunn yanked him. Maybe he won’t do that again this postseason.

Mainieri can also use all seven pitchers he used Friday in relief on Saturday, Sunday and Monday — if LSU plays in the if-necessary game on Monday. He could also start one of those seven on Monday if need be. That includes Bain, who threw three innings. All seven worked up a good sweat and got their feet wet.

Had Mainieri started Poche Friday, Poche might be out of sorts for the rest of the weekend.

The way Mainieri handled it, the Tigers’ 10-3 win over Lehigh may as well have been a Wednesday night victory over an in-state school.

LSU’s real NCAA regional weekend begins at 8 p.m. Saturday night – weather permitting.