LSU’s Michael Braswell providing a spark at the top of LSU’s order

One of the reasons for LSU’s offensive struggles this season was the lack of a consistent lead-off man. Coach Jay Johnson tried just about everyone, including Tommy White and Jared Jones.

But in game one of the final SEC series of the year, Johnson decided to give shortstop Michael Braswell a shot and he has been outstanding.

In the five games Braswell has batted lead-off. LSU has won every game and he’s 8-for-22 at the plate, with eight runs scored and 6 RBs.

In Tuesday’s win over Georgia, he had three hits and in Wednesday’s 11-to-0 shutout over Kentucky he scored three times and hit the third pitch of the game for a solo home run.

Braswell has been one of LSU’s most consistent hitters, hitting above .280 for most of the season and will take a nine-game hitting streak into Thursday’s game against South Carolina, his former school.

“We brought him here, basically I just like the way he plays that was the whole gist of it, sometimes you’re looking at analytics and stats and those type of things, I just love the way he plays,” Johnson said.

“The whole design is just getting someone on base in front of the big boys. He has some 500 college at-bats at this point and he’s doing a great job of getting on base and hitting those mistakes,” Johnson said.

He’s also settled in at shortstop. Braswell committed an error on Wednesday, but it was only his second error since April 20th.

Now Braswell will get to face his former team. He played at South Carolina for two seasons, before transferring to the Tigers.

LSU and South Carolina are set to meet around 4:30 PM on Thursday in a winner’s bracket game.

Luke Holman throws six hitless innings

Holman followed up Gage Jump’s terrific outing on Tuesday with his own gem. Holman threw six hitless innings in Wednesday’s shutout win over Kentucky. He walked a couple of batters and hit another one, but was in complete control.

During the postgame press conference. Johnson mentioned Holman battled cancer as a child.

The tall-right hander from Pennsylvania had anaplastic large cell lymphoma, a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

According to the Reading Eagle , Holman underwent chemotherapy for a year. His parents say the first three months of chemo were very difficult.

Johnson credits his poise on the mound to surviving cancer as a kid.