Jay Johnson explains decision to pull Luke Holman amid no-hitter

The LSU Tigers have started the SEC tournament on fire with back-to-back blowout victories over Georgia and Kentucky.

On Wednesday, starting pitcher Luke Holman was throwing a no-hitter against the Wildcats when Tigers head coach Jay Johnson decided to pull him from the game. In the postgame press conference following LSU’s 11-0 victory, the skipper revealed why he pulled Holman early and whether there was a chance he could have returned to the game.

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“Oh yeah,  no shot he was going back out. He finished with 100; I was looking at like 80 to 95, [that] was kind of my target,” Johnson said.

Holman pitched 6 innings facing 22 batters, earning seven strikeouts, and did not give up a single hit. Gavin Guidry replaced the LSU starter for the remainder of the game, which was called an inning early due to the run rule. Still, while Holman was impressive on the mound, there were other moments in the game where Johnson considered pulling his starting pitcher.  

“He got those two quick outs in the sixth against their best hitters. And it was a little bit wobbly,” Johnson continued. “Like, I was considering going to get him in the 5th, which, if I’m gonna let anybody ride it to the win, it’s that guy. I mean, he’s one of the best pitchers I’ve ever had — he got through that after we made an error, and that’s what he does. Then he got a quick inning in the next inning, and he got a quick inning the next inning; I can’t speak of how good of a pitcher I think Luke is.”

At the time when Hoffman was pulled, LSU had a 2-0 lead heading into the 7th inning. That is when the Tigers bats exploded for five runs in the seventh and another four in the eighth to activate the run rule defeat over the SEC’s regular season champ.