Chase Shores injury update: Jay Johnson describes impact of getting LSU pitcher back in 2025

The LSU Tigers pitching staff is getting a major boost in 2025 with Chase Shores finally returning from an elbow injury he suffered back in 2023. Now, he’s ready to become a key piece to the puzzle for the Tigers this season.

Ahead of Opening Day, LSU head coach Jay Johnson appeared on On The Clock. There, Johnson broke down the loss of Chase Shores for the past couple of seasons and what it means to get him back for next season.

“People ask me about adversity in that national championship season,” Jay Johnson said. “And I can honestly say, the worst I felt, the biggest pit I had in my stomach, was he threw a 97 mph fastball here in like the eighth inning to strike somebody out from Tennessee in a game that we won 6-4. This place is going bonkers and he walked in and he said his elbow was bothering him. I was like, wait a minute, that was 97 mph. The next day, finding out he needed Tommy John surgery. I remember like a pit in my stomach of, not just I felt like we could get through ’23, but I knew that was going to impact last year.”

In 2023, Chase Shores appeared in seven games, making four starts before being injured and needing surgery. That led to him taking a medical redshirt in 2024. In that time he did pitch in 2023, Shores threw 18.1 innings with a 1.96 ERA and a 1.309 WHIP. He also had 15 strikeouts to nine walks.

“He’s healthy. He’s rocking and rolling, pitches have improved,” Johnson said. “And excited to get him back out there.”

As a young pitcher, Chase Shores was very fastball-dependent. That’s still his best pitch, but while recovering from injury, LSU has also had him working on his secondary pitches to become more complete.

“You start with the fastball, obviously, from him. I think he locates it incredibly well. It’s a ball that’s very difficult to square up. So, I think as a young pitcher, just leaning into it and how well he commanded it, and the electricity of it, you lean into it,” Johnson said.

“But this is a guy that works incredibly hard, wants to be a complete pitcher. I think the slider took a massive step forward this Fall. We really set up some of his outings to make sure that that and the change-up were being developed where you know what the talent is, you know what he can do. So, we kind of pitched off of how do we get him better, and kind didn’t worry about the results — and the results still were pretty good. That signaled to me an improvement in that stuff that you’re talking about.”

Jay Johnson, Chase Shores, and the rest of the LSU Tigers will begin their season on Friday, February 14th against Purdue-Fort Wayne.