Last Time Out: BLOOD! BLOOD EVERYWHERE!
Since then The Greenies have gone 6-8 to settle into an even 20-20 record, losing all of their CUSA weekend series and an embarrassing stumble against Nicholls St at home. Tulane has won just a single conference series all year and is in danger of finishing below .500 for the first time in 19 seasons. It is a team riddled with injury, especially to it's bullpen, and an offense with just a single batter batting over .300. This is not a good team, in fact it may be the worst bunch of Greenies LSU has faced since the pre-Bertman era. It could very well be the last time we see Coach Rick Jones in Alex Box Stadium.
So the usual gameplan is out. Instead of treating this like an important historical rivalry, Coach Mainieri has decided to put in the gameplan usually reserved for SWAC teams. That means experimentation and Johnny Allstaff. For the first time all year, Rhymes and Katz will flip the 4 and 5 spots in the lineup. Mainieri has also said that Tyler Moore will DH tonight. Kurt McCune will be getting another short 2-inning start followed by the amassed bullpen, and a good performance could see McCune get the nod this Sunday.
There is one more potential lineup change tonight and it could be the story of the game. JaCoby Jones, who's been battling bad plate performance off and on all season, added fielding mistakes to his repertoire last weekend at Bama, enough that Mainieri pulled him from the game after just a few innings last Sunday. Mainieri has told reporters that he's not sure if Jones will be rejoining the lineup tonight. It's kinda been a running joke all season that despite this possibly being one of the greatest LSU teams of all time, all any MLB scout wants to know about this team is JaCoby Jones, to the general befuddlement of anyone who's watched the Tigers all season. It's not the first time Mainieri has benched Jones to try and light a fire under him, but at some point it needs to actually work. I'm virtually certian he'll be back at 2B this weekend, but if this lesson doesn't stick his next benching might be quite a lot longer than a midweek against a terrible team.
Game is at 6:30pm on Cox Sports
Mainieri on McCune