Jay Johnson explains why Paul Skenes didn't pitch vs. Florida in College World Series

LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson explained why he didn’t use ace Paul Skenes in Game 3 of the College World Series finals against Florida.

The Tigers ended up not needing Skenes in an 18-4 romp of the Gators to clinch the national title. That came after a blowout loss in Game 2.

Johnson joined Sirius XM SEC Radio to explain his decision making regarding Skenes.

“So what we did was Sunday after the game, I brought him into my room,” Johnson said. “We kind of talked through how he was feeling and he was actually very positive about how he was feeling. And then it became, okay, let’s do all of our testing stuff tomorrow.

“In terms of his legs, his back, his hips, all those types of things because he has a very good delivery and the way he would put his arm at risk is if his body wasn’t right to move through his delivery. But we kind of came up with this number that he had maybe 30 pitches and then he and I talked him through it.”

Originally, it could’ve been a start for Skenes, albeit a short one.

“I mean, the conventional thought was okay, let’s just start you because that’s the routine that you’ve been in,” Johnson said. “And then he actually said something to me that he goes, okay if that’s what you want to do, but I want my pitches to matter if that makes sense. I really want my pitches to matter. 

“And I was like, Okay, I’ll take that under advisement. But at the end of the day, I wanted to protect him. But then I thought about it a little bit more, and I thought if we trotted him out there, took him out maybe let’s say after the second inning in a 0-0 game, I thought that would give Florida a big emotional lift.”

So the more Johnson thought about it, Skenes in a late game situation made more sense, if he was needed.

“And so with that being said, we said hey, you have 30 pitches, eighth inning,” Johnson said. “Basically a save situation would be the time that we would pitch him and if it wasn’t that, it would be at the top of the order, maybe in the sixth or seventh inning. So that was kind of the framework and then I’m really appreciative of my offense, you know, taking us out of that position because I’ll be honest, I didn’t really want to use them at all. 

“He’d given us everything he could. He was the most outstanding player in the College World Series, and now he’s gonna get about 10 million bucks here in a few weeks fully intact, which is awesome.”