There have been games that meant more to LSU baseball. Games that sent teams to Omaha and closed a venerable old stadium in style. Games that etched players, coaches and teams in Baton Rouge lore.
But perhaps none can compare to what transpired in a 27-0 rain-shortened victory Tuesday against Northwestern State.
Five Tiger pitchers — including three who were making their final regular season appearances in Baton Rouge — combined to throw the school’s first no-hitter since 1979 and the school’s first combined no-hitter in school history. LSU has been playing baseball since 1893.
The Tigers cranked out 23 hits, scored in all but one inning, set the school record for the largest margin of victory in a game and hit two grand slams in just six innings.
With questions surrounding its postseason fate, the Tigers treated their final midweek tuneup against the Demons like it was the last time that group would step foot in Alex Box Stadium together.
“Hard to describe what we just saw tonight,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “I don’t know how to describe what happened today. We don’t hit like that in batting practice usually.”
Junior Tyler Moore, who hit the team’s first grand slam in the first inning, had a career high eight RBIs — all by the third inning.
Sophomore shortstop Alex Bregman, who knocked a grand slam of his own in the fourth, belted an additional three-run homer in the sixth and finished with a career high eight RBIs.
“I’ve never seen anything like that in baseball before,” Bregman said. “I felt like our offense just kept squaring up ball after ball. It was a fun team win and we’ll take that into the weekend.”
“It didn’t matter who was going up there, everyone was hitting the ball hard,” Mainieri added. “Tremendous performance by our team offensively.”
Freshman southpaw Jared Poche’ got the victory for LSU, tossing a scoreless first inning that required only eight pitches.
After Poche’ exited, junior Kyle Bouman threw two perfect frames, striking out four. Senior Nate Fury, Kurt McCune and Joe Broussard followed with hitless frames of their own to finish the job.
McCune, once a freshman All-American who endured illnesses, injuries and rocky starts in his four-year stint in Baton Rouge said he’d never been involved in anything close to Tuesday’s game “in real life.”
“So many things have happened at LSU, but this is by far the craziest one I’ve witnessed,” McCune said. “I like how [the no-hitter] is a bunch of guys collectively together that did it. Shows the strength of our bullpen.”
After Northwestern starter Andrew Adams issued walks to both Bregman and sophomore Chris Chinea in the home half of the first, Tiger senior Sean McMullen laced an RBI double to open the scoring.
Additional walks to freshman Danny Zardon and senior Christian Ibarra loaded the bases for Moore, who sent a 2-0 fastball to the bleachers in right field.
Moore was simply following the designated plan for a Tiger club that had been scuffling of late offensively and only managed three runs in its two games against Alabama last weekend.
“We wanted to break it open early and get a lot of runs tonight,” Moore said. “We tried to get the boost and the offense and tried to get our confidence back up. We know we can hit.”
Up 7-0 after one, the Tigers added four in the second before a 35-minute lightning delay halted play in the top of the third.
After the delay, Mainieri began to insert the non-starters, who kept the offensive gameplan at the forefront.
Freshman Jake Fraley smacked a two-run home run in the third and classmate Kramer Robertson added a mammoth two-run shot of his own — the first of his career — in the fourth to put the Tigers up 20-0.
Pregame ceremonies honored McMullen, Fury, Ibarra and McCune in what certainly is their last regular season game at Alex Box Stadium and could be their final time in the park.
Postseason questions will be answered in time. But in the waning minutes of the nearly four-hour game compounded by rain delays, Mainieri relished the surreal scene he’d only witnessed one other time while a coach at Notre Dame.
“Back in 2002 … [Notre Dame] beat South Alabama in the regionals 25-1,” Mainieri said. “Out-hit them 32-1. Two games in a 32-year career that I felt we’ve played perfectly in everything we did.”
“Hopefully we’ll be back for the regional. If this was the last game of the year at the Box, what a way to cap the year off.”