NEW ORLEANS — Before the LSU baseball season started, LSU senior All-American Raph Rhymes said if anyone was going to break his plus-.400 batting average from last season, it would be freshman shortstop Alex Bregman.
Bregman is well on his way to doing that as he helped LSU (23-2, 5-1 Southeastern Conference) beat Tulane 14-1 Tuesday evening (14-13) at Turchin Stadium in New Orleans. Bregman went four for four, reaching base on four consecutive singles. He extended his hitting streak to 14 games and his three-hit hitting streak to five games.
After being named Southeastern Conference player of the week and Louisiana Sports Writers Association hitter of the week, Bregman continued his dominance with a team-leading .443 batting average.
“The kid is just flat-out a really good hitter,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri.
Bregman had four of LSU’s 15 hits and three of LSU’s 14 runs.
“When you see a guy who’s that naturally gifted but work that hard, it comes out on the field,” said senior first baseman Mason Katz, who had three hits and four RBIs of his own. “It’s fun to play alongside somebody like that.”
The Tigers started the game with a five-run first inning and have scored in the first inning in their last five games.
“When we get runners on in the first inning, we feel like if we capitalize there, it’s going to pay off later in the game and so we really focus on the first,” Bregman said.
The Tigers scored five runs in both the first and eighth innings, twice in the second inning, and once in the third and fourth innings. Of the nine batters in the starting lineup, all but junior second baseman JaCoby Jones and junior third baseman Christian Ibarra got hits.
Junior designated hitter Sean McMullen had his second start as the Tigers’ leadoff hitter, driving in three runs. Mainieri has switched the leadoff hitter several times, testing sophomore outfielder Chris Sciambra, freshman outfielder Andrew Stevenson and Jones in the spot.
“I just had a gut feeling — give this kid a chance and see if he can’t be a spark plug at the top of the order,” Mainieri said.
The early, high-scoring game gave freshman pitcher Russell Reynolds more time to settle his admitted butterflies on his first start away from home.
Reynolds pitched his longest game yet, throwing 96 pitches in seven innings. He allowed four hits and one run and struck out four batters. Mainieri said Reynolds looked nervous at the beginning of the game.
“After he came off the mound in the third inning, I said, ‘Don’t hit or walk another leadoff hitter tonight if you want to continue to pitch,’” Mainieri said. “So he was inspired.”
After the pep-talk, Mainieri said Reynolds threw the ball well, especially in the fourth through sixth innings.
The Tigers will travel to Missouri (8-12, 2-4 SEC) on Friday for a three-game series in Columbia.
