Dubois: Relaxed LSU finds magic again

• By CARL DUBOIS
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: May 22, 2008 - Page: 1C - UPDATED: 12:15 a.m.

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HOOVER, Ala. — Ryan Verdugo’s words Tuesday echoed one day and one amazing LSU comeback later.

“If we’re down 2-0, 3-0 and it’s even the sixth inning or later, we know we can still come back,” Verdugo said on the eve of the Southeastern Conference tournament. “We’ve just been able to relax and go to work.”

Verdugo’s work as starting pitcher was done when the Tigers erased a four-run deficit in the ninth inning Wednesday and won 5-4 on Blake Dean’s solo homer in the bottom of the 10th against South Carolina.

Skip Bertman, the coach of LSU’s five national championships, sat near the dugout and saw the Tigers looking “nonchalant” before the rally.

Relaxed, confident and having fun, LSU keeps foreshadowing and accenting the markers in this improbable 17-game winning streak.

It began April 22 with an 8-4 victory at Tulane. Dean’s 4-for-4 night seemed like a good sign for the homestretch, and now we know just how good.

The Tigers pretended the Saturday of the South Carolina series in late April was a Sunday and wore their Sunday sunflower-gold jerseys. They hit a pair of two-run pinch-hit homers and won 11-10 after trailing 7-0.

With their Sunday best in the wash, they wore throwbacks the next day, endured two rain delays and got their first home SEC sweep in five years. Coach Paul Mainieri even credited the players who had tarp duty.

They rallied to win LSU’s first game against UL-Lafayette since 2002.

Then they went out and began a streak — still alive — of 11 consecutive games and victories in the yellow-gold. They’re unbeaten in their last 13 games against SEC competition.

LSU didn’t win that many SEC games in all of 2007.

Matt Clark hit that now-famous game-winning homer at Kentucky. The win may have been made possible because of the decision by Bertman, LSU’s athletic director, to let the Tigers travel on charter flights that weekend.

They didn’t have a lead until Clark’s home run more than three hours after the game began, and a travel curfew might have prevented them from winning.