A little bit of an odd weekend, as LSU plays host to two teams and plays three games total and hosts a BYU-SLU tilt. But not on Sunday because BYU never plays on Sunday, which I honestly think is pretty cool. So the series starts tonight and runs through Saturday. Against two teams. Yeah, I'm confused, too.
BYU Cougars
2012 Record: 22-27 (10-14)
2012 Conference Standing: 7th in the WCC
2012 RPI: 156
2012 ISR: 101
2012 RS/RA: 238/292
Ancient Logo:
Notable Alums:
Philo Farnsworth (invented television)
Paul D. Boyer (1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry)
Don Bluth (director of An American Tail and The Land Before Time)
Mitt Romney (about a hundred Electoral Votes short of being the president)
Ken Jennings (Jeopardy! champion)
Aaron Eckhart (Harvey Dent)
George Sutherland (former US Supreme Court Justice)
Orson Scott Card (wrote Ender's Game and its countless sequels)
Steve Young (San Francisco 49ers)
Jack Morris (Game 7 of the 1991 World Series)
Pretentious music video:
Did you know that the lead singer of the Arcade Fire was raised in an LDS household? And while he isn't Mormon, his brother is. And his brother is in the band. So we have our official Mormon music hook for the week. Here's a live version of the Arcade Fire doing the Clash's classic, Guns of Brixton:
When they kick at your front door, how you gonna come? With your hands on your head, or on the trigger of your gun? In case you are wondering, BYU will come with their hands on their heads. LSU, well, let's just say we like hunting.
Weekend Rotation:
RHP Desmond Poulson 1-0, 0.00, 10/2 K/BB
RHP Jeff Barker 1-0, 1.50, 4/3 K/BB
LHP Mark Anderson 0-0, 4.50, 3/2 K/BB
Let's give Poulson some credit, he was named WCC pitcher of the week for dominating Northern Colorado last week. He's the #1 starter, and boasts some pretty good ratios there. Barker redshirted last year after throwing a grand total of 3.1 innings his freshman year, so I'm not going to pretend I have a scouting report on him. The 6 innings he threw last weekend is the bulk of his collegiate career so far. Mark Anderson is a senior starter who put up a decent 3.93 ERA last season and pitched out of the pen last weekend. He gets a shot to be their fourth starter, as BYU will use their #3 pitcher against SLU. I expect to see Anderson, but there's the most outside of outside chances we see Barker on Saturday. There's not a whole lot here that scares you outside of Poulson.
Sluggers:
3B Adam Law 429/556/429
CF Jaycob Brugman 308/471/462
2B Brennon Anderson 200/294/400
Anderson is a freshman who is a big enough talent to move their established shortstop from last year, Adam Law, to third base. Law had a nice first weekend, but he hit 221/302/254 last year. He was their top hitter in the opening weekend, but that has to be a fluke, right? Brugman hit 277/344/392 last season, but he also stole 12 bases and is a threat on the bases. This team hit 261/326/340 last season, so as much as I complain about our hitting woes, they ain't nothing compared to the Cougars. This team has real problems scoring runs primarily due to a total lack of power. Alex Box isn't the biggest park in the world, but I still don't think they will go yard all weekend.
Tiger Bait?
They better be. LSU also will play one game against Southeastern, who does not get a preview. Sorry. BYU is not a very good team, though they have one pretty good pitcher. At least Maryland had some longshot pro prospects. There's not a whole lot here. Now, it's baseball, and all it takes is one good start from a pitcher to pull off an upset, but it seems unlikely LSU will lose a game this weekend. We have two more weekends after this until we get to SEC play. I love baseball being back and all, but this out of conference schedule really sucks.
Would it kill us to play Fullerton again?