LSU was handily beaten by the best team in college baseball Saturday night, the Texas Longhorns, by a score of 6-1. Ty Floyd took the loss, but with just one run scored, the blame of the loss has to fall on the offense’s shoulders. Some misplayed defensive sequences also played a role in the result.
Floyd ran into the trouble in the second inning, with runners on first and second with two outs. An awkward grounder to the third base line had to be played by Floyd, but instead of pocketing it and moving on to the next batter, Floyd skied the throw over Tre’ Morgan at first base, scoring Texas’s first run. Douglas Hodo III followed up right away with a three-run home run into the Houston Astros’ famed Crawford boxes, giving Texas an early 4-0 lead.
Texas added another run on a rough relay following an amazing Gio DiGiacomo leaping catch in right field that allowed a runner to tag and score. Then, Murphy Stehly hit a solo home run off Trent Vietmeier to extend the Longhorn lead to six. The LSU pitching staff gave up eight hits throughout the evening but walked five batters as well.
The bats were stifled the entire game by Tristan Stevens, not scoring any runs until the eighth inning. Stevens threw seven IP, gave up just five hits and struck out seven LSU batters.
However, Dylan Crews and Cade Doughty got on base in the bottom of the eighth with no one out to bring up Jacob Berry. He singled through the right side, loading the bases with no one out. Jordan Thompson flew out to deep center, scoring Crews and advancing Doughty and Berry. Brayden Jobert walked after, loading up the bases again. But, Tyler McManus struck out, and Jay Johnson called Hayden Travinski in to bat for Gio DiGiacomo, who also struck out, stranding LSU’s last opportunity to climb back into the game.
LSU stranded 12 runners on base. Against a team as talented as Texas, some of those runs had to be converted into runs scored.
The Tigers will try to pick up the pieces and get a win tomorrow night against the Baylor Bears. The starter for LSU is yet to be named. They are 1-1 on the weekend following a walk-off win against Oklahoma last night via a Jordan Thompson solo home run. First pitch is for 7:00 PM.