Minnesota Twins pitching coach Wes Johnson exiting, reportedly for same position with LSU Tigers

Minnesota Twins pitching coach Wes Johnson has informed the club he will leave his job this week, reportedly for the same role at LSU.

Johnson traveled with the team on Sunday night to Cleveland, where he will stay on for the five-game series that’s scheduled through Thursday, Twins spokesman Dustin Morse said.

According to a report by D1Baseball.com on Twitter, Johnson has accepted the pitching coach position at LSU. The Twins did not confirm Johnson’s destination. Further announcements from the club surrounding the staff change will come this week.

The midseason move by a key assistant from a first-place team was startling, but Johnson’s arrival in 2019 was also unusual. He was widely believed to be the first college pitching coach to jump directly to the major leagues when the Twins hired him from Arkansas.

Johnson presided over pitching staffs for division champion teams in his first two years, and the Twins have returned to the top of the AL Central this season. They lead the Guardians by two games entering their series this week. Minnesota has a 3.78 team ERA, which ranks 11th in the majors.

Tennessee Volunteers’ dominating regular season earns them No. 1 seed in NCAA baseball tournament

They have been the consensus No. 1 team in the polls all but one week since March 28, and enter regionals having won eight straight and 12 of 13.

“It’s really cool to win the SEC tournament,” Vols slugger Drew Gilbert said, “but we have bigger goals in mind and know we still have a lot of baseball in front of us.”

The 64-team tournament opens Friday in 16 regionals. Winners advance to eight best-of-three super regionals. Winners of those super regionals move on to the College World Series in Omaha.

The top eight national seeds are assured of hosting super regionals if they win their regionals.

The national seeds following Tennessee: Stanford (41-14), Oregon State (44-15), Virginia Tech (41-12), Texas A&M (37-18), Miami (39-18), Oklahoma State (39-20) and East Carolina (42-18).

The full NCAA baseball tournament bracket pic.twitter.com/Xq4GSnbu9Q

— Nick Cole (@NickColeSports) May 30, 2022

Pandemonium ensues as pine tar overturns college HR

We saw shades of Brett and the famous Pine Tar Incident in a college game between the University of Central Florida and Memphis on Sunday at FedExPark Avron Fogelman Field in Memphis, Tenn. In the top of the first inning, UCF catcher Andrew Sundean belted a three-run homer to left field to give the Knights a 5-0 lead.

Memphis challenged the home run, arguing there was too much pine tar on Sundean’s bat. Reminiscent of the famous Brett incident in the Bronx 39 years ago, the umpires laid Sundean’s bat across home plate to measure the amount of pine tar. They ruled Sundean out, and while Sundean didn’t come sprinting out of the dugout, UCF’s head coach—Greg Lovelady—made his way toward the umpires to make his feelings known.

Lovelady vehemently argued with the umpires before having to be held back from going to the Memphis dugout. He was ejected from the game, as was Memphis’ pitcher, right-hander Blake Wimberley, who began yelling at Lovelady before the benches started emptying.