LSU baseball head coach Jay Johnson shared a positive update regarding the status of pitcher Gavin Guidry. The right-hander will be ready to go for the 2026 season after sitting out all of last year.
After two seasons as a pivotal bullpen arm, Guidry had back surgery a few weeks into the 2025 season after attempting to make a return. He worked through the ups and downs of the rehab process over the summer and into the fall.
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“We’re not going to stop what he’s doing and I feel like he’ll be ready to go and that’s a good thing for our pitching staff,” Johnson said.
Johnson elaborated in the doubts he had about if Guidry could make a full recovery. From getting back in shape overall to building his arm up to full strength, the process was tedious but both the coaching staff and Guidry kept at it.
“I got to that point where I was like, ‘I don’t know if this is going to work’ and then he made a breakthrough,” Johnson said. “We were a little bit careful from the rebuild from the surgery and the back being okay to get the arm back in shape because he hadn’t thrown a competitive pitch since the first weekend of February of last year.”
Guidry made his first live outing during the first weekend of November and continued to work against real competition. His recovery following those outings went smoothly, according to Johnson.
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“How he responded physically from sitting down and getting up again, there was no problem with that,” Johnson said. “And then the next day, any soreness was just like normal pitching soreness. And that got better each week, so it’s actually good now. He can go into that reload phase, if you will.”
Guidry has thrown 53 innings in his LSU career with an ERA of 3.23. LSU is losing its top bullpen arms and getting Guidry back will be a significant boost to this pitching staff.
This article originally appeared on LSU Wire: LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson gives injury update on key pitcher