72°
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
7 Day Forecast
Follow our weather team on social media

LSU's Austin Bain bringing the heat from the bullpen to the batter's box

Related Story

Baton Rouge, LA - "I just want to see W's on the board, I don't care if I have to hand bats to the guy. I don't care I just want to win."

Austin Bain doing it all from the bullpen to the batter's box, closing games and coming up with clutch hits after Head Coach Paul Mainieri asked him to take to the plate and hit DH.

"I saw it as an opportunity and I just went out there and tried as hard as I could and I told myself 'you're not striking out' and so if I got two strikes I was going to just spread out and choke up but I was refusing to strike out."

"It's been fun for the pitching staff because we've been kind of riding the hitters a little bit saying their job isn't that hard," says Zack Hess, adding, "But it's been pretty cool seeing him going out there and do his thing."

"The pitchers have my back, I think the hitters are kind of skeptical and they are talking about how I hold the bat like a golfclub but I'm just trying to make something work"

"I remember last year we were playing a little four-man ball and the pitchers had a team and he hit a homerun," added Antione Duplantis. "So I've known he could hit and he's pitching well too so I think he's just having fun competing."

But it hasn't been all fun for Bain, the Baton Rouge kid out of Dutchtown High once thought of to be the Tigers' Sunday Starter, but over the last 3 seasons struggled to earn that job.

"It was really disappointing, I mean all I wanted to do was the best for the program and the team and not living up to my potential kind of let down the team and it was upsetting but it's like a motivation that pushed me to work harder and I feel really confident now. And it's a really good feeling with the history of this place man, like growing up around it and now being able to tell my kids one day I hit at Alex Box, it's a dream come true."

News

Desktop News

Click to open Continuous News in a sidebar that updates in real-time.
Radar
7 Days