LSU's starting pitching rotation for opening weekend vs. Milwaukee

On Thursday afternoon, LSU head coach Jay Johnson announced the starting pitchers for this weekend’s opening series vs. Milwaukee. The first pitch on Friday is at 2 p.m. with the Saturday and Sunday games at 2 p.m.

Sophomore Casan Evans will start on Friday, junior Cooper Moore will start Saturday, and sophomore Williams Schmidt will start on Sunday. LSU also plays on Monday at 3 p.m., but Johnson said that starter will be decided later.

Evans gets the day one start after showing his talent in 2025 as a freshman with 19 appearances and three starts, ending with a 2.05 ERA in 52.2 innings. He had a 5-1 record and had seven saves on the year as a key reliever for Johnson’s national championship squad, finishing with 71 strikeouts to 19 walks.

“He’s always been a starter,” Johnson said of Evans. “I brought him here with the intention that he will be a starter. In my process, players crumble when you give them too much too fast. We had Steven Milam at second as a freshman then shortstop as a sophomore. Derek Curiel at left field as a freshman and centerfield as a sophomore. Casan was a high leverage reliever and part time starter to the weekend rotation now. I think he’s ready. I think he was ready last year. He proved that in the postseason. His pitchability is excellent. The person and the character with the talent shows up on gameday. I’m excited for him and excited for this team.”

With all of the attention on who is throwing out the first pitch this weekend, Johnson continues to preach a team-first approach as he looks to ensure that everyone buys into their roles and understands what it takes for LSU to win at the highest level.

“The starters are important, but the bullpen is the key in college baseball and I want those guys to be celebrated as much,” Johnson said. “That’s why I’m not over the top about putting that out. Everybody has a job on the team and all of them are really important. You think about the championship teams. Paul Skenes is a once in a lifetime player. Ty Floyd had a great season, but when I think of Omaha, I’m going to think about Nate Ackenhausen, Griffin Herring, Riley Cooper, and Gavin Guidry. When I think about 2025, obviously Kade was special and Anthony was great, but I’m going to think a lot about Casan Evans and Zac Cowan too. In this case, when you have a program philosophy, it’s not fair to overly give those guys all of the attention. We have a terrific bull pen and a lot of options and it’s a team effort. Tomorrow is our first chance to win a game since June 22. That’s why we operate the way that we do. There’s more to it than just ‘this guy earned a spot.’ But relative to William, he struck out nine batters when we played last Friday. Pretty good performance.”

As the pitching rotation has a lot of hype, the infield has the most question marks entering the new year, but the talent is obvious. Shorstop Steven Milam will lead the way, but the rest of the pieces will settle into their new roles at LSU.

“We’ve led the country in srtrikeouts two years in a row. It’s hard for me to say this staff is going to do that, but if we did it wouldn’t surprise me. They sure stuck our guys out a lot,” Johnson said. “Still, you just have to operate under the assumption that the ball will be put in play and if it is we’ll handle it. We have the best shortstop in college baseball. His leadership skills have elevated the way the rest of the guys are capable of playing. Zach [Yorke] is a really good first baseman, then there will be some mixing and matching at third base and second base, depending on the game. I took over the infield after the first year to make it better and each team has answered the bell and there’s an expectation that these guys will as well.”

LSU will be playing eight games in the first 10 days of the season, just as it did in 2025, in an effort to get the team immersed into the season and give them the opportunity to play a full schedule in 2026. Within the next week and a half, Johnson and LSU fans will know much more about this team’s makeup and what’s ahead.

“We have a way of doing things and one of our methods is win as many games as we can and figure out our best lineups as we go. The other part is these guys want to play games and they want to compete. I’d have a mutiny if we had to scrimmage ourselves again. I want to give them the best chance to play 56 games and that’s getting tougher to do with our time frame and our roster shrinking down. I feel like I owe it to the players to give them a chance to play all 56 games.”