Scooter Hobbs column: Doing whatever it takes – American Press

Really?

So now it’s gone from the sublime to the heroic to, oh, just jump straight to the ridiculous for LSU.

And stay turned. Don’t touch that dial. Grab the Rolaids. There’s still a whole weekend, two or three games, left in the Tigers’ stay in Omaha, one of the those best-of-three deals for your basic national championship.

Who knows what the Tigers will come up with next after long into the night to beat Wake Forest?

Might be just about anything, but I can’t imagine what would be missing at this point. They’ve about exhausted unlikely paths to victory.

They’ll think of something, surely.

When the Tigers’ Tommy White, fighting a mini-slump, hammered a towering two-run homer in the 11th inning to break a scoreless Thursday, you saw one of the great clutch Omaha hits in the Tigers’ long history.

Also, it one of the best games Omaha has ever witnessed — as long as you’re not overly enamored with runs, hits and errors, that sort foolishness.

For pitching, though, you were covered many times over.

At some point, you figured the NCAA might throw up its arms and summon pitchers Paul Skenes and Rhett Lowder for a face-to-face at home plate.

It was the matchup they wanted. But it almost backfired.

The College Pitching Duel of the Century was everything it came advertised as. And more … inning after inning.

But the CWS needed an opponent for Florida in the championship round by Saturday and time was starting to run out.

Just flip a coin to decide it.

All Skenes and Lowder were doing was stacking K’s on top of zeroes inning and after inning after inning.

And there were plenty more arms where they came from, with restaurant-quality relief and museum-worthy defense on both sides of the park.

Yes, looking at you, Tré Morgan, and that improvised shuffle pass that kept Wake Forest off the board despite what looked pretty much like a perfect safety squeeze.

Fundamental baseball may not be everybody’s rosin bag, and it might have been monotonous if you didn’t remind yourself that this was two of the most dangerous offenses in the country.

Give the steady stream of pitchers a strike zone as big as all Texas to work with and it appeared the only way anybody might score was for the dreaded left-field sun to get involved.

There were some formalities to get out of the way.

Skenes needed two innings to get the three K’s he needed for break Ben McDonald’s LSU and SEC single-season record 202 strikeouts.

Lowder claimed the ACC record a couple of innings later.

Nobody seemed interested in scoring. Or capable of it until the player they call “Tommy Tanks” bombed the first — and only — pitch that Demon Deacons reliever Camden Minacci threw well into the left-field bleachers.

True, Florida had to love watching both teams use so much arm power with the Gators waiting with an extra day off.

LSU-Florida starts Saturday, an all-SEC rematch of the 2017 national championship series that the Gators won in straight sets.

No, the two conference mates haven’t met yet this season.

But that’s not all that was familiar from five years ago.

LSU took the hard way into the championship.

Back then Oregon State, like Wake Forest this time, was the No. 1 seed in the whole tournament and the Tigers also had to beat them in consecutive games.

They’ll likely have to come up with something unorthodox to claim a seventh national championship.

But they seem to be making a habit of it.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics.Email him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com