Jay Johnson previews key series for LSU vs. Texas A&M

Coming off of a thrilling series win over Tennessee at home, LSU now heads to College Station to take on a surging Texas A&M team. First pitch on Friday is scheduled for 6 p.m. with Saturday and Sunday games coming at 2 and 1 p.m. CT.

On Wednesday, Johnson met with the media to break down the upcoming matchup, his tendencies, and more.

Texas A&M scouting report…

“Very talented team. A team that played for the national championship last year with a lot of really good returning players. Very familiar with them, very familiar with their roster. They’ve had a great stretch here lately. And what I mean by that is, obviously, they’ve beaten a couple of the top programs in the country—both on the road—Tennessee and Arkansas. And they played three really tough games against the number one team right now. An Omaha team.”

Q: Is there any parallel between them this year—their start—and your start last year?

“I don’t know, I hadn’t really thought about that. I think anytime you go through a coaching change or transition like they did, it might take you a second. But there was no question in my mind that those guys were going to play well at some point.

Ryan Prager has been one of the better pitchers in the league for a few years. I mean, him and Lamkin feel like they’ve been there forever. You start there. They have three really good left-handed starters, with Miles Patton. And then that lineup—LaViolette, to me, Caden Sorell is one of the best hitters in the country. No question about it.

The Henseler kid from Penn is good. Harrison, the catcher, has really done well. Really good freshman with Kiel. And some guys have started playing better as of late, on top of that. So it’s a long lineup, good pitching staff, good home ballpark. It’s a good challenge. Excited about it.”

Q: What does confidence do for a team? Does it make teaching easier at practice?

“It’s everything in baseball. It’s a game that’s designed around failure, that you have to play every day.

I learned this—or heard this—from Chris Petersen, the football coach. He said, “Confidence gets you through the setbacks.” I think that’s profound. And it’s more applicable to baseball than any sport because of the nature of it.

I’ve never met a great player, or a great team, that didn’t really believe in their abilities. So having that helps you persevere through adversity. It’s everything.”

Q: This team’s got a ton of lefties—you sort of mentioned it. Do we overrate how much of an adjustment that has to be when you’re facing a team with that many left-handed options, especially in the starting rotation? Or is it a real adjustment?

“I think it depends on the pitcher. Even all left-handers are not the same thing, and I’d say that specifically about a couple of these guys in terms of how you attack them.

I don’t know if I’ve looked—again, maybe it changed a little this weekend—you get a game against a guy like Doyle, and he’s getting you pretty good. But I think, splits-wise, we’ve been pretty straight up. The ability to match up has really helped us—getting the right guys in the games at the right times. So, I don’t really think so.

We’ll prepare for the pitcher. The better the team—your own team, the depth of your team—the more you can kind of negate some of that. But good pitching is designed to beat good hitting. We’ve had games against these guys where sometimes you just have to make it tough on them. Like, I remember last year—I want to say it was Lkin in the second game—he was eating us up pretty good, and then boom, we put three on the board just like that and took the lead.

He’s a really good pitcher. That juggernaut offense we had in ’23—we won the first two games there, and we were winning in game three. Then he came in there as a freshman, found a good role, and slowed us down just enough. They won a tight game.

So I respect those guys a lot. Recruited Ryan Prager at Arizona. I mean, he was probably never going anywhere but Texas A&M, but he’s a good kid. Been a good pitcher in this league for a long time.”

Q: You mentioned some of the experienced pitchers they have. Does leaning on a guy like Coach Yeskie help with that, in terms of having him coach guys he’s familiar with?

“Well, he knows them—he coached both of them. I thought we had a very successful series against them last year when they were the number one team in the country. It helps, but now you’re talking about two years’ difference. He’s not the same coach, they’re not the same pitchers or players. And you guys hear me talk a lot about how it’s sometimes day-to-day with players at this age level—they’re not pros.

So we’ll take what we can. He certainly has some good insights, I think, about the ballpark, the program, and those types of things. And, you know, uniquely, because they’re a really old team, a number of those guys are still there.

Q: Your team’s pinch-hitting batting average has been in the .280s, and some guys are much higher than that. As a stat guy, how does that compare to some of your opponents or past teams you’ve coached?

“I’m not sure. I don’t overly put too much stock in that, and I’ll tell you why. Especially in a season like this one, where we’ve had so many blowout games, sometimes I’m just getting guys opportunities.

So when you do it is probably the more important thing to look at. I haven’t put much stock in the number itself. I think if you’re a big-league manager, that really matters. Some guys just have a knack for it. Last year, that’s kind of how Ashton Larson got going in the lineup. He was exceptional at it. I think he was like five for his first eight or nine pinch-hit at-bats. And he’s got three or four hits recently, largely due to his mental makeup.

Some guys at this level have a hard time adjusting to it because they’re used to always being in the lineup. I think our staff does a good job. I’ll lean over to one of the staff members—any one of three of them—and say, “Hey, get so-and-so ready to do this.”

So we can prep them. They’ve developed a good routine with Coach Martin to get their bodies moving and ready. But it’s tough. If you get a good one, it’s ultra, ultra valuable.”

Q: Daniel mentioned last night that your recruiting pitch to him out of the portal was, “It’s going to be a nine-month thing—come for one year, let’s win a championship, and you’re done.” In the portal era, how often do you use that kind of pitch?

“Well, no. The player kind of decides that. He was a Team USA guy. I don’t know who the expert is on draft lists, but look at the projected draft lists—he’s in the top 100. And now they’re giving away so much money that he’s going to get a good bonus.

I wish baseball could go to the NFL draft style—pick one, boom, pick two. But instead, we’ve got bonus pools and manipulation. If it weren’t like that, the best players would just go where they’re supposed to.

That’s never happening, though—not in Major League Baseball. So it’s different for every guy. I just think he’s going to have the opportunity he came here for. I assumed that, if everything went right, that’s how it would go.When we brought Paul here, it was for one year. It’s just different for every guy.

There may be a guy we thought that about who ends up being a good contributor—and you might get a second year out of him. That’s great.

It’s really a totality-of-circumstances thing. You look at what’s best for the program and what’s best for the player, and you can usually get there. What we try to do is educate them—not let emotional appeal, on their side or ours, get in the way. But as he said, his story is remarkable. He’s wanted to be a Major League Baseball player for a long time. And he wasn’t always Danny Dickinson, the one you guys get to see.

He’s really worked himself into this situation. I’m proud of him for that. And I think it’ll be his time this year. His play has absolutely warranted it. He’s the best defensive second baseman in the country right now.”