Things couldn’t go much worse for freshman pitcher Aaron Nola in his first career Southeastern Conference start.
Nola allowed five of the first six Mississippi State batters to reach base – three with doubles – and fell behind early. The Bulldogs scored five runs in the first inning, supplying all the offense they needed to take the series finale, 7-1, at Alex Box Stadium.
After earning one-run victories in each of the series’ first two contests, Sunday’s game left a sour taste in the mouth of LSU coach Paul Mainieri.
“It was just one of those days,” Mainieri said. “In this league, no wins are guaranteed because you’re going up against a good team every day, and today was Mississippi State’s day.”
The Bulldogs jumped on Nola from the start, as leadoff man Adam Frazier doubled on the game’s first pitch. Nola hit the next batter, and each of the next four batters drove in a run. Mississippi State first baseman Wes Rea drove in another with a double to left-center field to give the Bulldogs a 5-0 lead before LSU even had an at-bat.
“Not every day is your pitcher going to go out and shut out the other team until the seventh inning,” Mainieri said. “When that happens, you’ve got to have some confidence and ability to be able to come from behind. Today was not the day for us to do that.”
Nola mostly settled down after the disastrous first frame. He allowed just two hits in his next five innings of work and struck out four, but surrendered one run on a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning.
“I got in kind of a groove,” Nola said. “I kept the ball down most of the time after the first inning. I had to compete even harder than I did the first inning. If you don’t compete in the SEC … it’s going to go even worse.”
Mainieri hasn’t given up on the freshman hurler, though, and he said Nola’s recovery from the first inning showed what he is capable of.
“Aaron Nola is a great pitcher,” Mainieri said. “The last thing in the world I want that kid to do is lose any confidence after the first inning of today. He pitched phenomenal after that.”
After digging themselves an early hole, the LSU offense didn’t do much to crawl back out of it. The Tigers managed 10 hits – all singles – but four double plays by Mississippi State limited LSU’s offensive production.
The only LSU run came in the sixth inning when sophomore second baseman JaCoby Jones scored on a groundout by sophomore catcher Ty Ross.
“Today we took a lot of strikes and swung at a lot of bad pitches,” Mainieri said. “Today it was more of a timely hitting thing than it was getting hits. We’re a better offensive team when we’re not having to fight from behind.”
Though LSU didn’t strike out, batters didn’t have much of an answer for Mississippi State starting pitcher Kendall Graveman. The junior pitcher entered the game with a 2.82 ERA and allowed just one run in a complete game.
“He was mixing his pitches really well,” said junior right fielder Raph Rhymes, who went 4-for-4 at the plate. “He was throwing them low in the zone, and he kept his fastball down in the zone. It’s hard to square things up when a pitcher does that.”
Despite the Sunday loss, LSU clinched its sixth consecutive series win against Mississippi State. But Mainieri expected more.
“It is good that we won the series,” Mainieri said. “If you win every series every weekend, you’re going to have a good year in this league. But today we wanted to win.”
 
_____ Contact Hunter Paniagua at [email protected]