BATON ROUGE – LSU baseball senior leftfielder Chris Stanfield was noticeably absent from the team's batting order when it was released an hour prior to first pitch of the series finale with Milwaukee Sunday afternoon.
After No. 1 LSU's 21-7 trouncing of the Panthers to complete the season-opening series sweep at Alex Box Stadium, head coach Jay Johnson said that Stanfield bruised his hand during a play at the plate late in the game Saturday and was held out of action for precautionary reasons.
"He may play tomorrow," Johnson said of Stanfield. "I just felt like it was good to let the swelling go down and not reaggravate it. So that's my hope is he'll play tomorrow."
Through two games, Stanfield is 2 for 7 with two runs and a double. Before this season started, he switched to left field from center field and Derek Curiel is now in center. Johnson has said the plan was always to let Curiel adjust to the college game his freshman season in left before moving him to center field for the 2026 season.
And there was a strong chance that Stanfield could have been drafted following the 2025 campaign. Once that didn't happen over the offseason, Stanfield returned to Baton Rouge and assumed his role in left field.
In Stanfield's absence Sunday, Curiel hit leadoff and went 3 for 4 with three RBI and a run. Both took reps batting first last season and with both back, Johnson has some flexibility at the top of the order.
"We're not nearly locked into anything right now," Johnson said the day before Opening Day on the leadoff spot. "I still need to do some work on tomorrow. As far as what we're going to roll out, at least at the beginning of the game, it's probably going to look different on Saturday. In terms of order, maybe some personnel spots. I'm excited to see guys compete."
LSU hosts Kent State (3-0) Monday night. First pitch scheduled for 6 p.m. CT and can see streamed on SEC Network+.
Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: LSU baseball's Chris Stanfield sat out vs Milwaukee Sunday. Here's why