Jay Johnson goes into incredible detail on game-changing decisions made vs. Little Rock

The LSU Tigers wrapped up the Baton Rouge Regional with a win over Little Rock on Monday. That was a win that came after head coach Jay Johnson chose to shake things up following their loss on Sunday to Little Rock.

Johnson put together a completely new lineup for the game. It was a choice that, ultimately, worked out when the Tigers put up 10 runs and won, to move on to the Super Regional.

“I just operate by this,” Jay Johnson said. “When do you take a risk? You take a risk when you have a lot to gain. We had a chance to play a Super Regional at home, two wins to go to Omaha. Seven more to win a national championship, maybe eight. It was time to take a risk, and then you don’t just do it to do it. There’s never a decision in this program made just because I want to make a decision.”

There were a few major changes to the lineup. That started with the two-hole hitter. On Monday, Johnson turned to Ethan Frey instead of Jared Jones. Then, third, Steven Milam hit instead of Daniel Dickinson, who got dropped to the four-hole. Jake Brown also got dropped to the fifth spot before Jared Jones hit in the sixth spot from previously being the number two hitter. Chris Stanfield, Luis Hernandez, and Michael Braswell then rounded out the lineup.

“I’ll walk you through the whole thing. So, Derek Curiel is the engine of this offense. That’s what he is. He’s the engine of this offense and how he plays inspires the team,” Johnson said. “And then it’s Ethan Frey is one of the best hitters in the country right now. Right now, he’s one of the best hitters in the country. I wanted to get him up as much as we possibly could. I wanted them to feel pressure immediately in the game with him stepping in the batter’s box. Steven, I don’t know if he was on the All-Tournament team… His at-bats this weekend were him at his best as a player. He’ll play baseball a long time if he takes the caliber of at-bats that he has. I felt good going into the day, like that’s what he was going to do.”

Frey ended up having a massive game for the Tigers with a double and a home run. Hernandez added to that with two of his own home runs before Jones added another home run of his own later in the game.

“Danny hit two homers and then hit a deep fly ball against them the other night,” Johnson said. “And how they pitched him, I knew they were viewing him as a big threat. I thought that would help Steven get pitches to hit. Jake, I thought, was a good match-up, being that we were going to see the types of pitchers that we saw tonight.”

Johnson wanted his team to provide depth throughout the lineup. That was part of the logic for moving Jones to the six-hole. That helped to make the lineup more unrelenting for the Little Rock pitching staff to manage.

“And then on the best teams that I’ve had, that six-hole guy, after you’re having to work through the top five and all those guys doing their jobs, sometimes they can get forgotten about a little bit or the pitcher lets up just a little bit. I wanted to give Jared that advantage. Chris Stanfield, I thought, played awesome this weekend. I wanted to get him up a couple more times. He’s done a great job turning the lineup over, but I thought maybe getting him one more at-bat in the ninth inning, he hit the chopper and the speed obviously created a run. I told the team, that was the best eight-hole hitter in the country tonight in Luis. That was also on the board, actually,” Johnson said.

“And then Michael just played defense because with Zac [Cowan] and Casan [Evans], there was a sense the ball was going to be on the ground and run tough at-bats and turn the lineup over, and I just felt like I liked the flow of all of it a lot better.”

Now, Jay Johnson and LSU are going to turn their attention to the Super Regional. There, the Tigers are going to take on the West Virginia Mountaineers.