LSU baseball's bullpen has rough time in series loss to Florida. Our takeaways

As Jay Johnson looked on from inside the clubhouse as LSU baseball crumbled down the stretch to drop a second straight Southeastern Conference series, this time to Florida at Alex Box Stadium, some dreadful thoughts came to mind.

"That was like you're dead and you're actually getting to watch your life play out," Johnson said after LSU's 12-2 run-rule loss to the Gators in the series finale Sunday afternoon. "I would be disappointed if I were actually dead and I was watching that happen. That was not a good finish to the game today."

It wasn't a good finish to the series for the Tigers (18-6, 2-4 SEC). They opened with a 6-1 win Friday night, then a 6-4 stumble in the 11th inning Saturday night after letting Florida (14-9, 4-2) creep back into the game to force extras predated Sunday's ugly defeat on their own field.

Here are our takeaways from LSU's tough series loss to the Gators.

Jay Johnson challenges LSU baseball's competitive approach after Florida series loss

Entering Sunday, the day it struggled against Mississippi State during his team's first SEC series last week, Johnson wanted his team to show him that the game was more important to them than it was for Florida.

"We fell short of that today," Johnson said. "That was disappointing. Those four innings were the most disappointed I've been in a long time."

After the game, the team met for an extended length of time before Johnson made his way to his postgame press conference.

Florida outscored LSU, 12-1, in large part off of a barrage of home runs that were early in the count. Colby Shelton hit two homers while star Jac Caglianone, Luke Heyman, Cade Kurland and Ty Evans each hit one.

In the last two games of the series, the Gators plated 16 runs off LSU pitchers in the fifth inning or later.

LSU Tigers bullpen gets roughed up by Gators

Through the 24 games prior to the Florida series, the Tigers' bullpen was averaging giving up 1.7 runs per reliever at just 41 runs in that stretch.

But the numbers in the three games against Florida are eye brow-raising as LSU's seven combined relievers combined to surrender 16 runs on the weekend.

Execution in tight games and late in the contests when pitches needed to made were not there for the Tigers.

Florida has one of the more potent lineups in college baseball behind Caglianone and Shelton but LSU's staff has faced some quality hitters and lineups. How the Gators had their way looked out of character for the bullpen.

Ethan Frey's return was something to covet for LSU baseball

Frey missed a few games with a leg injury but his return to the batting order was one of the brighter positives in a dim weekend for LSU.

Frey started twice against the Gators at designated hitter and found a way more often than not to get on base. He went 3-for-7 against Florida with one RBI and run.

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His return can provide Johnson another option in the outfield as well as at the designated hitter spot in the lineup, should the coach want to have senior Hayden Travinski catch.

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 atbdiaz@gannett.com.