junior Mason Katz (who was Second-Team All-SEC last season) is the guy Mainieri said is going to be our #1 hitter this season, and he said our offense will rise and fall as Katz rises and falls. Katz has been our clean-up hitter in the 1st 6 games of the season, and #3 in the order our last 3 games... and he is tearing it up: so far this season, he is batting .500 with a .821 slugging pct and a .605 on base pct. he's #1 on the team in doubles and home runs.

in the last 2 games he is 7 of 7 (100%) and reached base in all 11 at-bats: double, single, walk, single, walk, walk, single, 3-run home run, walk, double, RBI single (he also had 5 runs and stole 2nd to set up one of those runs by getting in scoring position).

he's from Jesuit High School in New Orleans, who he led to back-to-back 5A state championship games, winning one of them

he's wearing #8 this season, which is the number Mahtook wore from 2009 until last season... that's interesting because Katz wore #5 his first two years at LSU, which is the same number he wore in high school as a star for Jesuit... so it looks like he's wearing #8 as a sign that he is "The Guy" for LSU's offense this season (another note on Mahtook: he threw the ceremonial first pitch to start LSU's season opener this season)


junior Raph Rhymes and senior Tyler Hanover are also doing great, they are both hitting .394 this season and they are #1 and #3 on the team in RBIs (Katz is #2)



Mason Katz

1.426 OPS. Jeebus.

The key is being consistent. The team needs to be able to avoid long dry spells at the plate. We've seen an improvement in the last two games, but lack of quality pitching played a big factor. We'll see how we do against the better pitchers in the SEC.

Katz is going insane. he went 3 for 3 last night (single, double, home run and two walks), which means he is now 10 of his last 10 and batting .548 for the season with a .968 slugging pct and a .651 on base %

he also reached base for the 17th consecutive plate appearance, which is an LSU school record, and one short of tying the all-time NCAA record (we'll see if he breaks it today)

It is hard to do what he has been doing no matter who is pitching. Kudos to Katz!

Going to the Tuesday game @ Tulane. We better win because me and my daughter will both be in our LSU gear.

We went Friday and Katz was fun to watch. Gausman gave up some runs every time we got ahead, but he pulled it together before the relief got in. Goody looks to be pretty good. We are going again this weekend for the Michigan & ND games. Hope we can keep hitting we may need it. Other than Sat. this Ivy league school sure was not intimidated by our pitching, they came out swinging. Hope we can get a little better there.

Katz was just named national player of the week.

Good. He deserved it. Looks like he plans on replacing Mikie's batting average. We need him as well as Rymes, Hanover, Nola, and Jones to all hit over .320 to have a chance at a regional. The pitching will have to take up the slack if they don't bat over .320.