Where LSU baseball's Jared Jones finished nationally in home runs
En route to winning the 2025 national championship, LSU baseball's Jared Jones broke out of a slump at the plate to give his team a lift.
The junior slugger, who was a part of the 2023 national title team, finished the year with 22 home runs, which is tied for eighth nationally. He came six shy of tying his total from last year.
Jones' most recent dinger came in the College World Series against Arkansas. With a trip to the finals on the line, the first baseman came through in more ways than one. He crushed a game-tying solo homer in the bottom of the eighth, then delivered the walk-off RBI single in the ninth.
The home run against the Razorbacks was Jones' third in the NCAA Tournament. He batted in three of his four runs against UCLA on a home run and tallied a two-run shot in a regional elimination game against Little Rock.
Jones is likely heading to the professional ranks after he already passed up the minor leagues in 2024. Jones finishes his LSU career with 64 homers, a 1.097 OPS, and 445 total bases. Jones, a Georgia native, is a two-time national champion.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox Sports
22 minutes ago
- Fox Sports
Brewers' Misiorowski continues history-making start to his career by outperforming Pirates' Skenes
Associated Press MILWAUKEE (AP) — Milwaukee's Jacob Misiorowski made an extra effort to avoid getting caught up in all the hype surrounding the rookie flamethrower's highly anticipated matchup with Pittsburgh's Paul Skenes. 'It was just one of those things that you wanted to try and calm yourself down as much as possible and stay off the Internet because I feel like everything I swiped was me and Skenes, me and Skenes, me and Skenes,' Misiorowski said after the Brewers' 4-2 victory over the Pirates on Wednesday. 'I had to mute it, turn it off.' The way he's pitching, Misiorowski better get accustomed to the extra attention. After throwing five shutout innings to outperform the 2024 NL rookie of the year, Misiorowski owns a 3-0 record and 1.13 earned run average. The three hits Misiorowski has allowed thus far is the fewest by any major league pitcher through his first three career starts with a minimum of 16 innings pitched since at least 1901, according to Sportradar. Plenty of history was made Wednesday. According to Sportradar, Misiorowski averaged 99.5 mph and Skenes averaged 98.5 on their fastballs. That represented the highest combined fastball velocity by two starting pitchers in the same game since at least 2009. Misiorowski reached at least 100 mph on 19 of his 74 pitches — reaching a career-best peak of 102.4 — and Skenes got to 100 mph once out of 78 pitches. Since at least 2009, this marked the most combined 100-mph pitches by opposing starters for any game in which both reached that threshold at least once. 'I've watched plenty of his games,' Misiorowski said of Skenes. 'It's awesome to face a guy like that and really compare yourself to some of the best.' The hoopla surrounding this matchup of 23-year-olds didn't seem to bother Misiorowski, who struck out eight while allowing two hits and two walks. That was apparent well before the game. 'We were sitting over here laughing, joking,' said Brewers catcher Eric Haase, whose locker is just around the corner from Misiorowski's. 'Didn't seem it was affecting him at all.' The matchup drew a season-best sellout crowd of 42,774 for a weekday afternoon game. Most wanted to see what Misiorowski did next after allowing a total of one hit in his first two outings. His torrid start could force Misiorowski to deal with the level of attention Skenes has received ever since arriving in the big leagues as a No. 1 overall draft pick who led LSU to a 2023 College World Series title. Skenes has outperformed those considerable expectations. He was named the NL rookie of the year and finished third in the Cy Young Award voting last season. What advice would Skenes give Misiorowski about how to handle the scrutiny that could accompany an emergence to stardom? 'You've got to protect yourself, for lack of a better term, obviously with the media, but I assume if he goes and walks around Milwaukee now there's going to be more people that recognize him and all that," said Skenes, who met Misiorowski for the first time on Monday. "If he does what he's supposed to do and everybody thinks he can do, that's not going away any time soon. Get used to it and find ways to find peace and that kind of thing.' Skenes (4-7) lasted just four innings Wednesday while striking out four and allowing four runs, four hits and two walks. This was only the third time in 40 career starts that Skenes has given up as many as four runs. Milwaukee did all its damage during a second inning in which Skenes faced nine batters, threw 37 pitches and allowed four runs. Never before had Skenes faced that many hitters, thrown that many pitches or yielded that many runs in a single inning. After Milwaukee loaded the bases on a walk and two singles to start the second, Isaac Collins scored from third as Joey Ortiz grounded out to Skenes on an 0-2 pitch. Haase then hit a 1-2 pitch for a bloop RBI double that bounced in front of center fielder Oneil Cruz's diving attempt. Christian Yelich capped the rally with an RBI single to left on a 1-2 offering. Skenes allowed only one other base runner in his other three innings while matching the second-shortest stint of his career. His shortest appearance came in his final start last year, when he worked just two innings by design and didn't allow a base runner in a 9-4 victory over the New York Yankees. The performance raised Skenes' career ERA from 1.91 to 2.03. 'They did a good job of getting to some pitches," Skenes said. "I wasn't unhappy with the execution of all of those, there are probably a couple that could have been better but they did a good job.' ___ AP freelance writer Rich Rovito contributed to this report. ___ AP MLB: recommended
Fox Sports
28 minutes ago
- Fox Sports
St. John's Coach Rick Pitino On NIL, Transfer Portal: 'Complaining is of No Value'
Rick Pitino took St. John's from being a team that was nowhere to be found in the NCAA Tournament conversation to a No. 2 seed in just two seasons. How did Pitino get the Red Storm to rise to prominence so quickly? Living in the reality of NIL and the transfer portal, rather than fighting it. "I felt the change was here and quitting, resigning, complaining is of no value," Pitino said about NIL on Wednesday's edition of "The Herd." "You have to win the day. You have to get the job done, and I just felt that 'Okay, we're going to use it to the best of our abilities at St. John's.' "So, we're an urban school; we're a computer school; we play in Madison Square Garden as our home court: How can we maximize our potential by embracing the NIL and the transfer portal? We went away from high school basketball players, although we have taken one or two to develop, but by and large we've gone after older players." Pitino also expressed that parents have never been more involved in the recruiting process than now. On the basketball front, Pitino explained what his practices look like. "We have player development sessions every morning, Monday through Friday, where we go three-to-four different sessions with four players, and we try to take players like a Donovan Mitchell, a Terry Rozier who maybe's not ranked top-20 or 25 in high school, and they've got a little bit of a weakness. Donovan Mitchell had a weakness with the arc on his jump shot. Everybody's got a weakness coming out that's not top 10, so we try to take those player development sessions and make the players better," Pitino said. "Our practices, yes, are very difficult, but I will say this: They're not long. We don't go more than two hours, but we go hard for two hours. We're up and down for two hours. If I make a comment or a correction, it's going to be within 12 seconds, and then we're moving on because conditioning is a gigantic part of our style of play." After going 20-13 in the 2023-24 season, Pitino and the Red Storm put together a 31-5 campaign highlighted by winning the Big East regular-season title with an 18-2 conference record, winning the Big East Tournament and claiming a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. While St. John's was upset in the second round by No. 10 seed Arkansas, the 2024-25 season marked the first time in six years that the program had made the NCAA Tournament and the first time in 10 years that it had done so without having to play in the First Four round. On the personal front, Pitino won the 2024-25 Naismith, AP and Big East Coach of the Year awards. St. John's is Pitino's sixth full-time men's college basketball head-coaching gig, with the Hall of Famer previously coaching three seasons at Iona before leaving for Queens in March 2023. St. John's had a gargantuan transfer portal class this offseason, reeling in former five-star recruits and now sophomores Ian Jackson (previously of North Carolina) and Joson Sanon (previously of Arizona State), former Providence forward Bryce Hopkins, former Cincinnati forward Dillon Mitchell and former Stanford wing Oziyah Sellers, among others. 247Sports ranks St. John's transfer class as the best in men's college basketball. While the Red Storm have minimal returning players, they have big man and 2024-25 All-Big East honoree Zuby Ejiofor back for his senior season. Next season, St. John's will square off against SEC powerhouses Alabama and Kentucky, among other notable out-of-conference matchups. Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, and follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily! FOLLOW Follow your favorites to personalize your FOX Sports experience College Basketball Big East St. John's Red Storm recommended Get more from College Basketball Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Misiorowski outduels Skenes in matchup of young NL pitching phenoms as Brewers top Pirates 4-2
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Making his third major league start, Jacob Misiorowski threw five shutout innings and the Milwaukee Brewers earned a 4-2 victory against the Pittsburgh Pirates and Paul Skenes on Wednesday. Misiorowski (3-0) allowed two hits, walked two and struck out eight and threw 74 pitches and lowered his ERA to 1.13 for the Brewers, who took two of three in the series and climbed a season-high nine games over .500. Misiorowski, 23, entered the game having given up one hit and two runs in 11 innings over his first two outings since being promoted from Triple-A Nashville on June 12. Skenes, also 23 and the reigning NL Rookie of the Year and a starter in the 2024 All-Star Game, allowed all four runs in the second inning. Skenes (4-7) gave up four hits with two walks and four strikeouts and threw 78 pitches for the Pirates. The Brewers sent nine batters to the plate in the second inning. After loading the bases with no outs, Milwaukee scored its first run on Joey Ortiz's ground out dribbler to Skenes. Eric Haase followed with a bloop double to drive in another. The Brewers extended the lead when Sal Frelick grounded into a fielder's choice, while Christian Yelich capped the scoring with an RBI single. Trevor Megill earned his 18th save for the Brewers. Oneil Cruz, who was in the starting lineup for the Pirates after being removed from Tuesday night's game for failing to run out a double play grounder, reached on a two-base error in the seventh and scored on Tommy Pham's single. Spencer Horwitz's double scored the other run for the Pirates in the eighth. The Pirates threated in the fourth when Bryan Reynolds led off with a single for the first hit off Misiorowski and Horwitz followed with a walk. But Misiorowski got Nick Gonzales to ground into a double play and then struck out Cruz to end the inning. Key stat Skenes gave up four hits, four runs and a walk, in a 37-pitch second inning. Up next The Pirates have not announced a starter for Friday's series opener vs. the Mets in Pittsburgh. Left-hander José Quintana (5-2, 2.98) will start for the Brewers at home on Friday in the first of a three-game series against the Rockies. ___
