The bats have come alive for the No. 2 LSU baseball team.
The Tigers (6-1) saw huge production all over their lineup Saturday afternoon. LSU combined for 10 extra base hits, 21 total, and hit nearly .450 to gain its sixth win on the season and sweep the series against Boston College, 16-2.
The Tigers’ bats exploded early and often in the series finale as LSU racked up three hits in the opening frame. LSU senior left fielder Jared Foster sparked the Tigers’ offense from the leadoff spot for the second game in a row, roping a single to center field to start off the inning.
“He’s a great athlete,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “ He might be the best athlete on our team, and that’s saying a lot. He’s a true athlete. He’s starting to swing the bat with some aggressiveness and confidence. He had a really good camp … he has got the talent he just has to do the hitting consistently.”
Foster’s single eventually led to a two-out RBI single to left field by junior designated hitter Chris Chinea, giving the cleanup man his fifth RBI on the season.
The gift kept on giving for LSU as junior center fielder Andrew Stevenson came right back in the bottom of the second, leading off with a triple for his second on the year. Stevenson would score on the very next at bat after a pitch by Eagles (2-5) starting pitcher Nick Poore escaped the Boston College catcher Nick Sciortino and trickled towards the stands, giving the Tigers a 2-0 lead.
Stevenson was a huge factor in the Tigers’ offensive success Saturday, finishing the afternoon 2-for-3 with two triples and an RBI. The lefty tied the LSU record for most triples in a game, which was last done in 2010.
Stevenson said he can’t remember the last time he hit two triples in a game, but he said he will remember this moment for a long time.
“It feels cool,” Stevenson said. “The crowd was going crazy. It was a cool experience.”
Stevenson and Foster were just the firsts, however. Five batters later, junior shortstop Alex Bregman was in the batters box faced with two outs and men on first and second. Bregman did easy work of Poore, driving the 1-1 count to left for a 2 RBI double and a 4-0 LSU lead.
The Tigers didn’t stop there as they tacked on two more in the third and exploded in the fourth for two solo home runs by Bregman and senior catcher Kade Scivicque to extend the lead to 8-0.
“Our focus today in batting practice was be aggressive,” Bregman said. “I think we did a good job of that. I think our team did a good job of staying within themselves.”
Scivicque had a monstrous afternoon at the plate for the Tigers, finishing 3-for-4 with 2 home runs and 3 RBIs.
The bats refused to lay to rest for the Tigers as they went on to combine for eight more runs in the last four innings at the plate, including a 5-run eighth inning.
LSU’s huge day on offense was followed up by another clean slate on defense. The Tigers stayed out of the errors column for the second-straight game after combining for six errors on Wednesday night and Friday afternoon.
Tigers starting freshman pitcher Jake Godfrey got the win for LSU, giving him his first career win for the team going five innings allowing four hits, one earned run, three walks and a strikeout.
Godfrey struggled to throw strikes for much of his start, throwing 43 balls on 87 pitches giving the Eagles early base runners. But the New Lenox, Illinois, native pitched himself out of the early holes to go home victorious.
“I thought Jake was much better today than he was last week,” Mainieri said. “He still falls behind too many hitters, and inconsequently his pitch count gets run up and you have to take him out early. You want your starting pitcher to be capable of pitching deeper into the game he’s got to get ahead of more hitters and then put them away, but I thought it was a step up for him.”
Just four days after a disastrous upset loss to Nicholls State, which the Tigers stranded 17 runners on base and went 4-for-19 with runners in scoring position, a simple shift in the LSU lineup by Mainieri has seemingly eased the Tigers to a series sweep and fixes their inconsistencies on both sides of the ball.
“I think we’re on our way now,” Mainieri said. “We’re into the flow of the season and it’s time to really play well.”
You can reach Jack Chascin on Twitter @Chascin_TDR