LSU came into this season as a top 5 team in the nation, according to D1 Baseball, for a reason.
The Tigers always had the talent to make 2024 another banner year, even without Dylan Crews, Paul Skenes and a host of other players from last year's team. It was just a matter of playing up to their potential.
Through the first five weeks of Southeastern Conference play, LSU was not playing like a top team in the conference, let alone the nation. But over its last three series in SEC play, against Missouri, Auburn and now No. 1 Texas A&M, the Tigers may have found their stride.
LSU (31-17, 9-14 SEC) clinched its third consecutive series victory on Saturday against the Aggies with a 6-4 win at Alex Box Stadium.
"We're in Game 7 every game," LSU coach Jay Johnson said. "I don't think you could have a better response to that type of deal than our team is providing right now."
LSU's success this weekend against the Aggies has started on the mound. On Saturday, that meant right-hander Luke Holman had to be at his best.
That wasn't always the case against the Aggies, but Holman was at his best when he needed to be.
He walked five batters and threw only 55.9% of his 102 pitches for strikes. But he also held one of the top offenses in the nation to just three runs and struck out 10 batters over five innings.
The Aggies (39-8, 15-8) scored all of their runs in the first after loading the bases with nobody out, scoring a pair of runs on two sacrifice fly outs to capitalize off of three walks from Holman. Caden Sorrell then hit a two-out single to score the third run.
"The first inning was terrible," Holman said. "It's kind of mentally I was not there and I kind of got on the horse and said, 'Let's lock in and get the job done.' "
Holman retired the side over the next two innings but ran into even more trouble in the fourth inning when the Aggies loaded the bases with nobody out again.
But the force was strong with Holman from that point on. He struck out three consecutive batters, including the dangerous Jace LaViolette, to keep the score tied at 3-3.
"The stuff was really good tonight," Holman said. "The command later on (was there), I was throwing three off-speed (pitches) for strikes and they were looking pretty good."
Right-hander Christian Little came on in relief of Holman and had his best outing as a Tiger. He allowed two hits and struck out six in 3⅔ innings of work, recording the first two outs of the ninth before surrendering a run-scoring single.
His fastball ran up to 98.5 miles per hour and sat around 96. He threw all of his pitches for strikes, only walking one batter.
"I just tried to fill up the zone," Little said. "They've got a really good team. I didn't really want to give them too much leeway."
Left-hander Justin Loer replaced Little and forced a ground ball that was mishandled by Michael Braswell at shortstop for an error. Loer was then immediately replaced by right-hander Gavin Guidry with two on and two out.
Guidry threw a wild pitch that advanced both runners up a bag, then forced a flyout to end the game.
"I was kind of mad, kind of hurt (coming out of the game), Little said. "I wanted to finish it off but I have complete trust in Justin Lore and Gavin Guidry out there."
The LSU offense was quiet through the first two innings but picked things up with two outs in the third. Tommy White and Jared Jones blasted back-to-back home runs. It was White's 19th of the year and Jones' 20th, solo shots to cut LSU's deficit to one.
The Tigers tied the score after Josh Pearson's double and a two-strike, run-scoring single from Hayden Travinski later in the inning.
The next three innings were scoreless as the LSU bullpen kept it in the game. That finally changed in the seventh when Alex Milazzo scored on a wild pitch with two outs to give the Tigers the lead.
They added onto their advantage in the eighth inning on a run-scoring single from Milazzo that drove home Michael Braswell and another single from White that scored Steven Milam. The runs increased LSU's lead from one to three.
"All of those runs were needed there," Johnson said.
LSU and Texas A&M will wrap up their three-game series at Alex Box Stadium on Sunday. First pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m. and will be streaming on SEC Network+.