Jay Johnson keeps things simple while explaining why he pitched Paul Skenes in NCAA Tournament opener

After several rounds of debate, LSU head coach Jay Johnson opted to start his ace, Paul Skenes, in the Tigers’ regional play opener against a Tulane team that needed a miracle to get into the NCAA Tournament after finishing 19-40 this year. Nonetheless, Johnson didn’t want to tamper with a potential loss on Friday, so he put his future pro on the mound and let him do what he does best: mow down batters.

Skenes did just that and then some. The towering righty lasted the entire nine innings for the first complete game of his pitching career. To get there, he needed 124 pitches and struck out 12 batters while allowing just two runs to the Green Wave on a two-run bleacher bomb in the top of the seventh inning — but that was the only time LSU looked remotely vulnerable as they cruised to an eventual 7-2 win with Skenes taking care of business and keeping some other arms fresh for the rest of the weekend.

After the game, Jay Johnson was asked about the somewhat surprising decision to start Skenes on day one against such a weak opponent compared to the rest of their regional. Per Johnson, though, Friday was all about getting that first win and putting yourself in position to just have to win two more games to book a Super Regional in Baton Rouge next weekend.

“Yeah, he’s the best pitcher in college baseball,” Johnson said of Paul Skenes. “We’re now in postseason play. And felt really good about what he could do today and impact us winning the game. And he definitely did that. And as he spoke of, there’s some other value of him being able to do what he did today that should help the rest of the pitchers the rest of the way.”

Jackson was then asked how much consideration he gave to other options — whether that was pulling Skenes early to possibly save him for later in the regional, or sitting him today and letting another pitcher throw to save him for what would inevitably be a tougher matchup the next day.

“I’ve considered everything all the time, yeah,” answered Johnson. “Yeah, there was, but it was actually not a hard decision when you dig into it the way we dug into it.”

There you have it. Per Jay Johnson, the decision to put the ball in Skenes’ hand on Friday was an easy one — and Skenes himself made it look pretty good by throwing a full game.