A night removed from an abysmal clutch-hitting display, LSU strung together timely hits in the second and eighth innings and rode junior righty Ryan Eades’ career night on the mound as it cruised to a 7-1 victory against Brown.
Combating a frigid March evening that reminded LSU coach Paul Mainieri of his days at Notre Dame, the Tigers (9-1) cranked out 14 hits and showed no ill effects of Friday night’s underwhelming offensive display.
“I thought they swung the bats a lot better tonight,” Mainieri said. “A lot more aggressiveness, a lot more confidence, a little more focus and ready to play today.”
It wasn’t evident to start, however, as the Tigers wasted a golden opportunity in the first, leading off the inning with three singles to load the bases with the heart of the order due up.
Seniors Raph Rhymes and Mason Katz promptly struck out, followed by junior second baseman JaCoby Jones’ grounder to second to quell the threat and rile up Brown starting pitcher Heath Mayo.
“It was terrible to say the least,” Katz said. “Bases loaded, Raph, me and JaCoby in a row, we [should] get at least three runs out of that. That’s what we expect.”
After the Bears (1-2) struck for a run in the second on an errant throw by Katz, the Tigers erupted for five runs in the bottom of the frame, highlighted by Rhymes’ 2-RBI double down the third base line.
Katz followed Rhymes with a triple to score his classmate and pad the Tiger lead it would never relinquish.
“The guys came up and did a really good job of producing,” Katz said. “The guys at the bottom of the order did a great job of finding ways on. Then Raph came up with a big hit and made it easy on the rest of us.”
The five-spot would be all Eades needed as he mixed an array of fastballs and breaking pitches to stymie the Bears all evening, accumulating a career-high 11 strikeouts.
Eades, who scattered only five hits through six innings with no walks, said he was propelled by that offensive outburst in the second.
“That [five-run inning] was nice considering we couldn’t get any runs across in the first inning” Eades said. “I knew it would come around tonight. We had a lot of life in the dugout and the cold weather didn’t seem to faze us.”
LSU would tack on two more insurance runs in the eighth as Rhymes drove in freshman outfielder Mark Laird with a single and Katz grounded into a double play that also scored freshman shortstop Alex Bregman.
A trio of Tiger relievers – junior Will LaMarche, freshman Hunter Devall and senior Kevin Berry – allowed only one combined hit through three innings to slam the door on the Bears and seal the win for LSU.
“I thought it was just a good, solid win tonight,” Mainieri said. “I was really pleased with the way we played under very difficult conditions.”
