Why is left-handed pitching so important? LSU’s clincher vs. Oregon State provides answers.

LSU rolled out three left-handed pitchers in the regional championship Monday and still had one left in the bullpen.

For 8⅓ innings, Oregon State saw only southpaws, starting with Riley Cooper, then Nate Ackenhausen and Griffin Herring out of the bullpen before right-hander Gavin Guidry recorded the final two outs.

It was a different look from the previous two days, when LSU turned to its flame-throwing starter Paul Skenes for a complete game, then a trio of its top-performing right-handers — Ty Floyd, Thatcher Hurd and Guidry — to secure a victory in the second game.

But the day of lefties was telling in two ways: LSU coach Jay Johnson is capitalizing on something he did not have last year, and he trusts the lefties on his staff this year.

“I learned as a young coach having left-handed hitting and left-handed pitching is a key formula if you want to win at the highest level,” Johnson said. “Having those three guys out there today — we didn’t use Javen (Coleman) because he would have started if we had to play another game — what an asset that’s been.

“And I’m really happy to have Jake Brown and Kade Anderson coming down the pipe next year. We’ll just keep piling them up.”

Brown and Anderson are left-handers in LSU’s 2023 recruiting class who are expected to arrive on campus this summer if they aren’t drafted. Left-handed pitching always is in demand at all levels.

“The population of them is the No. 1 thing that makes them hard to find,” former LSU pitching coach Dan Canevari said. “No. 2, they’ve got to be good enough to play at the collegiate level, and if they’re like a Griffin Herring and they throw 90+ in the strike zone, they’re going to sign for big money in the pro leagues because it’s a premium, too.”

Left-handed pitchers not only provide a different look but also are tough to hit because their pitches have peculiar tendencies.

“Now for some strange reason, a left-hander’s baseball when he throws it always seems to move,” Canevari said. “I would never have even thought about playing college baseball if I wasn’t left-handed.”

Canevari doesn’t know why that is, but there’s an old joke that it’s because the earth spins in a different direction. But this movement is especially present in their breaking balls. A left-handed pitcher’s curveball breaks away from left-handed batters and in toward the feet of right-handed batters. Those breaking balls, when thrown for strikes, are what make Cooper and Ackenhausen effective, though Cooper’s is a lower three-fourths slot, while Ackenhausen’s is over the top.

Herring, while less experienced, is a higher velocity left-hander who fills up the strike zone.

“What I like about Ackenhausen is it’s 88 to 92 mile an hour fastball, which is really good for the left side, and he can mix it up, too, got a good little changeup — and that’s how you neutralize the opposite batter’s box if you’re left-handed,” former LSU pitcher Ben McDonald said. “I think all those guys, the ball moves with something different.”

In LSU’s case, McDonald believes it’s not just about putting a different look on the mound — it’s what the Tigers have. They don’t have a dominant right-handed reliever outside of Gavin Guidry — or Thatcher Hurd, when he is used in relief — to close games. That forces Johnson to play more of a matchup game.

“There’s one right-handed arm, and once that right-hander is used up in my opinion, then it’s he trusts his lefties over everybody else in there even though it might not be a lefty-lefty matchup,” McDonald said. “I feel like he trusts his left-handed arms, no matter what the matchup is after that.”

Other than starters Paul Skenes and Ty Floyd, along with Hurd and Guidry, the right-handers haven’t pitched well for LSU this year.

Sam Dutton has a 6.05 ERA through 19⅓ innings; Blake Money has a 5.97 ERA through 31⅔ innings; and Bryce Collins has a 7.47 ERA through 15⅔ innings. Christian Little not only has a 7.09 ERA through 33 innings, but he also walked 27. Dutton has the highest WHIP of the group at 1.86.

So lefties are the way to go when the top right-handers are not available.

“I think having left-handed pitching matters if you don’t have a dominant reliever,” McDonald said. “If you don’t have a dominant arm at the back end — somebody that you really trust to strike guys out — then you might start to play the matchup game, and I think a lot of college coaches are doing that now.”