Paul Skenes open up on his pitching performance vs. Tennessee

Paul Skenes was his usual self in the first game of the College World Series in a 6-3 LSU win over Tennessee. He fired 7.2 innings with 12 strikeouts Saturday night, just as an ace should.

It was the type of performance where everything worked for Skenes. LSU got ahead early and it allowed Skenes to settle into a groove.

But he knew he had a challenge when he saw the Tennessee lineup card.

“At different points today I had all four pitches working,” Skenes said. “I mean, you have to look at obviously their lineup but also what’s working for me. And went out there and made pitches, kind of threw what they weren’t expecting at times and it worked pretty well.”

The College World Series can certainly be intimidating. But it was exactly the type of environment for a big game pitcher like Skenes.

“It was awesome,” Skenes said of the environment. “And I think I’m going to need a little bit of time to kind of internalize that and take it all in. So I don’t think I was able to do that as much as probably some other people were tonight. But it was an awesome experience to go out there and compete in front of that many people. Alex Box Stadium is a cool place, but this is a different (indiscernible). It was really cool.”

Skenes actually hit his 200th strikeout of the season, which is two shy of the SEC record.

“Not really,” Skenes said if he thought about it. “Found out about that after the game, which is really cool. But, I mean, it comes down to executing. And I think I did a good job of that today, especially early on. And so it’s really cool to do that. But just a lot more happy with the execution, I think.”

Head coach Jay Johnson knew the familiarity with the lineup would help Skenes.

“We kind of did a hybrid thing of look back at those games,” Johnson said. “Then we looked back on where they were recently. And some of those guys have improved. And we felt like we needed to attack them a little bit different way.

“And then looking at it also, their plan early in the game, we were able to kind of figure out what they were trying to do with him. And then Wes did a nice job of calling pitches. And then the big man took care of the rest as far as the execution.”