GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
The LSU baseball team got beat by a TBA on Sunday.
“To Be Announced,” not a name, was next to Texas’ starting pitcher in the weekend pitchers listing for the No. 2 LSU vs. No. 5 Texas Southeastern Conference baseball clash over the weekend.
TBA ended up being junior right-hander Ruger Riojas, a transfer reliever from Texas-San Antonio last July who had not started a game this season and only two previously in his college career. Riojas limited the Tigers to two runs on seven hits in five and two-thirds innings with one walk and six strikeouts for the 6-2 win on Sunday to go to 5-1 on the season. LSU’s Chase Shores (4-1) took the loss after his sixth start of the season.
Texas (19-3, 5-1 SEC) took the series two games to one and rose to No. 3 in the Baseball America poll on Monday. LSU (22-3, 4-2 SEC) fell to No. 8 in the D1Baseball poll. The Tigers host Louisiana-Lafayette (11-14, 3-3 Sun Belt) at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.
LSU finished the game with the seven hits after entering the game averaging 11.8 a game over its previous 18 games, including 13 in an 8-2 win over Texas on Friday.
“Wanted to go with Ruger just because we wanted to see him,” Texas first-year coach Jim Schlossnagle said after the game Sunday.
“Just because we wanted to see him?” What was this a mid-week game?
“Been talking about starting him, if needed,” said Schlossnagle, who had complained during the off-season of his lack of pitching. “One thing you know about him, you’re going to get strikes with multiple pitches, as opposed to starting somebody and kind of hoping they catch fire on that particular day.”
Riojas was 10-3 with a 3.25 ERA and seven saves in 26 appearances for UTSA last season and 5-0 with a 4.11 ERA in 2023. But this was the SEC, and LSU did come in at No. 3 in the nation in batting average at .345 and No. 5 in slugging percentage at .589.
“Yeah, pretty awesome,” Schlossnagle said of his possible new Sunday starter. “He’s a level-headed kid – doesn’t get too high. May be in the rotation, I don’t know. We’ll see.”
Meanwhile, LSU coach Jay Johnson could be rethinking some of his pitching order. Amid a troubling weekend by his bullpen (eight runs on 13 hits and five walks in losses on Saturday and Sunday), freshman Casan Evans on Sunday was the best among the nine used over the last two days.
LSU BULLPEN SHREDDED BY LONGHORNS
Evans had the longest bullpen outing by far with three and two-thirds innings. None of the other eight logged more than an inning and two thirds. That was Connor Benge, who lost the Saturday game (11-7) with three hits and two runs allowed in the seventh. Conner Ware, William Schmidt, Jacob Mayers, Dalton Beck and Mavrick Rizy lasted a total of one inning from the fifth through the ninth and gave up four runs on four hits and three walks.
Evans gave up four hits, but just one run with zero walks and struck out five. On the season, he is 1-0 with a team-low 1.12 ERA (among pitchers with more than six and a third innings logged) and a team-high four saves in 16 innings through eight appearances with 28 strikeouts and only five walks.
And Evans was coming off a stellar performance amid major pressure and a rocking Alex Box just a week ago to save a 7-6 win over Missouri.
Perhaps he should’ve been used at key points in the Saturday loss when Johnson tapped seven out of the bullpen. The Tigers were up 5-2 in the fifth and 7-6 in the sixth and seventh before losing 11-7.
Evans not entering the series until midway through Sunday’s game did not go unnoticed by Schlossnagle, who recruited him out of St. Pius X in Houston when he was Texas A&M’s coach from 2022-24.
He was asked if taking two of three from then-No. 2 LSU was a confidence boost for his players.
“Sure. When you’re new to the league and you don’t know what it’s all about,” Schlossnagle said of his younger players and transfers from other leagues. “And he (Evans) is the seventh, eighth, ninth or 10th pitcher in?” Then he laughed.
Evans was actually the 12th LSU pitcher used on the weekend and ninth out of the bullpen. That illustrates depth, but maybe not the right order of depth on this weekend.
“We recruited Casan at my previous stop,” Schlossnagle said. “He’s going 97 mph with a freakin’ wipe-out slider. You learn real quick that that doesn’t happen in too many conferences. Some teams have it in other conferences, but the depth of pitching in this league is insane. The fact that we held our own against them should be a great confidence booster.”
So should first place in the SEC, which is where Texas stands in a tie with Tennessee, Georgia and Arkansas at 5-1.
“It’s not the scrap heap,” Schlossnagle said of his hastily put-together portal roster after taking over the Longhorns in late June following his national championship game loss to Tennessee in the College World Series. “But by the time we got here and dealt with all the social media stuff after the World Series.”
Many viewed Schlossnagle’s switch from Texas A&M to Texas as less than aboveboard because he likely knew he was swapping programs several weeks before he actually did. At the same time, he got the Aggies closer to its first national championship in baseball than it has been in history.
“You know, we were Satans of college baseball,” he said. “We had a lot to overcome, just because you made career choices.”
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