OMAHA, Neb. — After two days of the College World Series games, one thing is for certain — nothing played out as usual.
The No. 4 national seed LSU Tigers (57-10 overall, 23-7 SEC) followed fellow national seeds North Carolina and Oregon State by losing its first game, 1-2, to the UCLA Bruins (45-17 overall, 21-9 Pac-12).
The game started off as expected. Neither team could put anything together against the opposing pitcher, as sophomore pitcher Aaron Nola shut down the Bruins and junior pitcher Adam Plutko was able to induce fly ball after fly ball against the Tiger batters.
TD Ameritrade’s expanisve park played perfectly into the fly-ball machine that was Plutko’s hands. LSU ended the game with 13 fly outs.
“I think he’s the perfect pitcher for this park,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “We hit too many easy fly ball outs.”
Mainieri said the Tigers worked all week on laying off the high fastball, but couldn’t execute properly in the game.
But LSU was finally able to break through in the fourth inning.
Senior first baseman Mason Katz stepped to the plate with one out and no one on and squared up a low fastball for the first home run of the CWS.
“I just hit it to the right part of the park. Pulled it all the way down the line,” Katz said. “Luckily, he threw me one down in the zone and I was able to keep it on the line drive.”
For the most part though, LSU hitters struggled with the dimenisions of the new park. Junior third baseman Christian Ibarra connected with two Plutko pitches, sending them deep into left center field, but both were swallowed up by the left-fielder.
“This park plays big, and it’s unfortunate that that’s the way it plays,” Katz said. “One of two of Ibarra’s I thought for sure were gone.”
The LSU bats went cold after the Katz homer. His solo homer proved to be the only extra-base hit for either team.
LSU’s struggles at the plate eventually bled over to its play on defense. The Tigers started to break down in the sixth when junior outfielder Brian Carroll was allowed to advance to second base on an uncharicteristic throwing error by junior catcher Ty Ross. Sophomore third baseman Kevin Kramer moved Carroll over with a ground out, and sophomore outfielder drove in the run with a sacrifice fly.
Within five pitches it was a tie ballgame and UCLA didn’t have a hit in the inning.
“Carroll can run, as we all know, and speed creates pressure,” said UCLA coach John Savage. “So oppurtunistic would be the word, Nola threw five pitches that inning and we got a run.”
Oppurtunity struck again in the eighth. After UCLA pinch-hitter Ty Moore — not to be confused with LSU’s Tyler Moore — singled into left field, Carroll bunted the pinch-runner — Christoph Bono — over to second. Then Filia grounded to freshman shortstop Alex Bregman for what would become a dagger for the Tigers.
Bregman — who has struggled mightly in the field during the postseason — misplayed the bounce, which allowed Bono to score from second.
In Nola’s last 23 innings pitch he has given up zero earned runs, but seven unearned, highlighting the defensive lapses that have plagued LSU so far in the postseason.
“I battled as hard as I could until the last pitch,” Nola said. “Unfortunately, we booted a couple of balls around. But you gotta forget about that and we’re just going to come out Tuesday and compete.”
After a quick-end to both the seventh and eighth innings, the Tigers attempted to bring the game back in the ninth against UCLA’s star closer sophomore David Berg,
Berg was tied for lowest walks and hits allowed per inning in the nation with a mark of .80.
After Katz reached on a throwing error by the shortstop, senior Raph Rhymes — who has has developed a penchant for hitting into double plays this season — stepped into the batters box.
Rhymes squared to bunt twice, but took both pitches for balls leading to a tough decision for Mainieri — let the guy who led the nation in hitting last year swing away, or play it safe and bunt the runner over.
Rhymes swung and grounded into an around-the-horn double play.
“… I figured Berg, who throws a lot of strikes was going to lay one in there, assuming he was going to bunt again,” Mainieri said. “So I gambled and we came up with snake eyes.”
LSU kept battling, though. Junior third baseman Christian Ibarra drew a walk, and LSU’s Moore picked up a pinch-hit single to give sophomore second baseman JaCoby Jones runners on first and second with two outs.
After an attempted “Hidden Ball Trick,” Jones worked a 3-2 count, but on the sixth pitch of the at-bat, fittingly popped out for the last out of the inning.
“I don’t think anybody on our team wants to go home,” Katz said. “It’s pretty simple. I love these guys. I want to play as long as I can with them.”
LSU will attempt to stave off elmination against the No. 1 national seed North Carolina on Tuesday at 2 p.m.
