The No. 2 LSU baseball team left nearly two whole lineups on base Wednesday night.
The Tigers (3-1) dropped their first mid-week game since March 2014 to Nicholls State, 6-3, leaving 17 men on base while going 4-for-19 with runners in scoring position. LSU had a runner in scoring position in eight straight innings.
“We didn’t hit enough,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “We didn’t hit in the clutch. We just got to get more aggressive and more attacking at the plate then what we’ve shown.”
LSU was plagued by poor execution not only on offense but defense as well. The Tigers committed four costly errors setting up key Colonel (3-1) runs.
The Tigers ran into trouble early with the top of the Nicholls State order. After the Colonels grounded into a fielder’s choice to get their first out in the top of the first, the Colonels took advantage of mental errors to gain the early lead.
LSU freshman pitcher Doug Norman attempted to pick off left fielder Darius Knight at first, but instead, he threw the ball away from senior first baseman Conner Hale allowing Knight to advance to third. The Colonels took advantage of the error two batters later as first baseman Seth Stevens roped a line drive double over senior left fielder Chris Sciambra’s head to drive in Knight and take an early 1-0 lead.
LSU’s fortunes didn’t get any better. The Tigers left the bases loaded in back-to-back innings after hot starts at the plate to begin both of the first two innings.
With a 1-0 lead already in hand, the Colonels had runners in scoring position with one out in the top of the third and drove them home after a sacrifice fly went awry for the Tigers because of Sciambra’s throwing error to third.
The Colonels tacked on one more run in the fourth and two in the fifth to take a 6-0 lead. Norman could never find his groove in his debut on the mound in his 4 2/3 innings pitched, allowing five runs, four earned, on nine hits with three strikeouts.
“You don’t hear it too much, but I think I might have thrown too many strikes tonight,” Norman said. “I thought I did good getting ahead … but that two strike pitch — I just got to do a better job of executing.”
The Tigers began to come to life in the bottom of the sixth inning. After a quick fly-out by sophomore second baseman Kramer Robertson for the first out of the inning, junior right fielder Mark Laird singled to short, giving Nicholls State pitcher Evan Hileman immediate fits.
Hileman proceeded to throw consecutive pitches in the dirt, allowing Laird to advance to third before junior shortstop Alex Bregman drove him in on the next pitch on an RBI single to left field. Hileman threw two wild pitches on the next at bat to bring his total up to four as Bregman advanced to third and eventually scored on a Hale single to short.
The Tigers tacked on one more run in the bottom half of the sixth after an error by Colonels third baseman Kyle Reese led to an eventual RBI single by junior center fielder Andrew Stevenson. LSU cut the Nicholls State lead in half, 6-3, but the Tigers lack of aggression at the plate cost them a win. 
“We got to get better as a team,” Bregman said. “We’ll get back at practice tomorrow at 4 o’clock and get back to working on the basics. We got to drive guys in.”
You can reach Jack Chascin on Twitter @Chascin_TDR.