Is Jared Jones the next Mark McGwire? 5 LSU baseball takeaways from Samford sweep

BATON ROUGE – No. 1 LSU baseball continued its dominant run of form this weekend, sweeping Samford in a three-game series.

LSU (15-1) defeated Samford 11-1 on Friday, 12-0 on Saturday and 13-1 on Sunday, winning each game in only seven innings.

Here are five takeaways from the series:

Jared 'Mark McGwire' Jones

The most explosive performance of the weekend came from Jared Jones. After sitting out the series finale against Butler and the midweek matchup vs. Lamar, the freshman slugger returned to the starting lineup and hit four consecutive home runs – two on Friday and two more on Saturday.

Jones' exploits earned him the nickname "Mark McGwire," the former Oakland Athletics and St. Louis Cardinals slugger.

"It's pretty fun to see," LSU's Dylan Crews said on Saturday. "He's the strongest kid I've ever seen on a baseball field."

Like McGwire in his heyday, Jones' home runs were moonshots. According to LSU baseball's data and analytics page on Twitter, they all had an exit velocity of at least 106 mph and only one of the shots traveled fewer than 414 feet.

Paxton Kling's breakthrough

Jones wasn't the only freshman who shined over the weekend. Paxton Kling was also a star, going 2-for-2 Friday, 1-for-3 with a double on Saturday and 3-for-5 with a home run on Sunday.

The strong performance continued his hot streak at the plate dating back to last weekend, as Kling has 15 hits and three home runs over his last 23 at-bats.

"I see a lot of him in me actually," Crews said. "Just the build and the way he carries himself every day. He's a hard-nosed player, he'll lay out for anyone on this team."

Thatcher Hurd moves into the weekend rotation

Thatcher Hurd has slowly been working his way toward joining LSU baseball's weekend rotation.

Two weeks ago, he started on a Tuesday against Texas. Then, after a strong outing against the Longhorns, he moved up a day the next week and started Monday against Butler, not giving up any runs for a second consecutive outing. Finally, this weekend he entered the weekend rotation by starting on Sunday.

He went on to pitch well in his first weekend start for the Tigers, allowing no runs and striking out seven batters in five innings pitched.

"I think I had good feel for all four pitches. My curveball was working well. I had a good feel for my slider and in the last two innings, I built it off my changeup," Hurd said. "I thought the lanes with the fastball were good and the slider. So, I've got some more things to work with (pitching) coach Wes (Johnson) but I thought overall it was good."

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Run-ruled

LSU's seven-inning victory Sunday was the Tigers' sixth run-rule win in seven games. And it would have been their seventh in eight games if the rule had been in effect during LSU's 12-2 win over Butler last Friday (in nonconference games, the road team chooses whether the run rule is in play).

The quicker victories have afforded the Tigers some extra rest, but coach Jay Johnson isn't a fan of the rule.

"I think about Griffin Herring who is going to be a huge part of the staff this year and then in the coming years, Miach Bucknam (as well). I wish those guys could pitch more," Johnson said after Saturday's win. "They would also have three or four more innings to a man had that rule not been implemented."

Tommy 'Tanks' returns to 3B

After spending the last few weeks as LSU's designated hitter, White returned to the field for the first time since injuring his throwing shoulder.

He successfully fielded and threw out a runner in the seventh inning for his only throw of the day.

Koki Riley covers LSU sports for The Daily Advertiser and the USA TODAY Sports South Region. Email him at kriley@theadvertiser.com and follow him on Twitter at @KokiRiley.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: LSU baseball takeaways from series sweep over Samford