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BATON ROUGE – Jay Johnson spent majority of the game against McNeese State searching.
The LSU baseball head coach sifted through his pitching staff, looking for that one arm that was going to stop the self-inflicted wounds. He ultimately found some but by then, it was too late as the Cowboys caused enough miscues and capitalized on them to upset the Tigers, 7-6, at Alex Box Stadium Tuesday night.
No. 1 LSU (8-1) went down for the first time in the 2026 season and it lost in a similar fashion it has disposed of a number of the teams it's won against so far. McNeese drew six walks and was hit-by-pitch five times for 11 free passes.
MORE LSU BASEBALL COVERAGE What stood out from LSU baseball's sweep at Jacksonville showcase?
The Tigers gave up the first two runs to McNeese on a bases loaded walk quickly followed by a hit-by-pitch. McNeese padded its lead on a throwing error by Jake Brown in the fourth. Overall, four of its seven runs were either directly scored off a free base or a free base turned into a run.
Here's what Johnson said following LSU's first loss of the season.
"If I was to pinpoint something I'd probably look at that second to the fourth inning where we've been behind before in multiple games early on. But it seemed like our response wasn't as good tonight and maybe a little bit got outside of taking a quality at-bat when it was only 4-2. It took us going down 7-2 to get back into rhythm. I thought we ended the game fine. We scored in three of the last four innings. We got a little bit outside of ourselves and it ended up being too little too late."
"Walking and hitting as many guys as we did tonight, it's elementary baseball. There's not a lot to get into other than we gave them a lot of free bases and they're a good enough team when you do that, it makes it really hard to win. We used 10 guys tonight. I thought the guys at the end of the game did a good job. Probably should've reverse engineered the game. I should've gone to Deven (Sheerin) in the second inning just to stop the bleeding there. I felt good about Cooper (Williams) for sure but when we hit the guy and their best hitter is at the plate with the bases loaded, that two-run single ultimately ended up being the difference in the game."
"He hurt his foot. He said he couldn't play anymore and I don't know anything else other than that."
Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: What Jay Johnson said after LSU baseball's first loss on the season
Continue reading...
The LSU baseball head coach sifted through his pitching staff, looking for that one arm that was going to stop the self-inflicted wounds. He ultimately found some but by then, it was too late as the Cowboys caused enough miscues and capitalized on them to upset the Tigers, 7-6, at Alex Box Stadium Tuesday night.
No. 1 LSU (8-1) went down for the first time in the 2026 season and it lost in a similar fashion it has disposed of a number of the teams it's won against so far. McNeese drew six walks and was hit-by-pitch five times for 11 free passes.
MORE LSU BASEBALL COVERAGE What stood out from LSU baseball's sweep at Jacksonville showcase?
The Tigers gave up the first two runs to McNeese on a bases loaded walk quickly followed by a hit-by-pitch. McNeese padded its lead on a throwing error by Jake Brown in the fourth. Overall, four of its seven runs were either directly scored off a free base or a free base turned into a run.
Here's what Johnson said following LSU's first loss of the season.
Jay Johnson on when things got off track for LSU baseball vs McNeese
"If I was to pinpoint something I'd probably look at that second to the fourth inning where we've been behind before in multiple games early on. But it seemed like our response wasn't as good tonight and maybe a little bit got outside of taking a quality at-bat when it was only 4-2. It took us going down 7-2 to get back into rhythm. I thought we ended the game fine. We scored in three of the last four innings. We got a little bit outside of ourselves and it ended up being too little too late."
Jay Johnson on the LSU pitching staff's struggles
"Walking and hitting as many guys as we did tonight, it's elementary baseball. There's not a lot to get into other than we gave them a lot of free bases and they're a good enough team when you do that, it makes it really hard to win. We used 10 guys tonight. I thought the guys at the end of the game did a good job. Probably should've reverse engineered the game. I should've gone to Deven (Sheerin) in the second inning just to stop the bleeding there. I felt good about Cooper (Williams) for sure but when we hit the guy and their best hitter is at the plate with the bases loaded, that two-run single ultimately ended up being the difference in the game."
Jay Johnson on catcher Cade Arrambide leaving the game
"He hurt his foot. He said he couldn't play anymore and I don't know anything else other than that."
Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: What Jay Johnson said after LSU baseball's first loss on the season
Continue reading...
