Senior pitcher Jared Poche’s scoreless inning streak ended, but his winning streak did not.
Behind seven innings from Poche’, LSU defeated Georgia 5-1 to clinch its first Southeastern Conference series victory of the 2017 season.
Poche’ gave up seven hits, an earned run, two walks and dealt five strikeouts en route to his fifth victory of the year on the mound.
“Today was just vintage Poche’,” LSU coach Paul Mainieri said. “Jared Poche’ doesn’t care about records. He doesn’t care about streaks. He just wants to win. He went out there tonight and competed just like he does every time he pitches for us.”
Freshman third baseman Josh Smith gave the Tigers a 1-0 lead with an RBI groundout in the second inning to score freshman center fielder Zach Watson. Watson had previously walked in the inning, moved to second base after Jake Slaughter was hit by a pitch, and to third base after a wild pitch from Georgia freshman Tony Locey.
Poche’ had his streak of scoreless innings end at 32 after Georgia’s Keegan McGovern sent a home run into right field to tie the game up 1-1 in the top of the fourth inning.
Poche’ has only one thing in mind when it comes to his remembrance of the streak.
The mustache he has been growing simultaneously with the scoreless streak.
“I’ll definitely remember the mustache,” Poche’ said. “I’m kind of glad it’s over so I can get back to the basics and work on what I need to improve on.”
Sophomore outfielder Antoine Duplantis vanished the 1-1 tie instantly.
In the bottom of the fourth inning, Duplantis blasted his first home run of the season into the right field bleachers of Alex Box Stadium to put the Tigers ahead 2-1.
That wasn’t enough for Duplantis.
With the bases loaded in the bottom of the fifth inning Duplantis singled through right field to bring in two more runs, and extend LSU’s lead to 4-1. Prior to the hit, Duplantis fought his way through several foul balls.
“That at-bat that he had tonight fouling off pitches reminded me of Alex Bregman,” Mainieri said. “Bregman had at-bats like that all the time. He just never gave up when he got two strikes in a clutch situation. Antoine had a real veteran clutch at-bat tonight and came through with a big hit for us.”
Duplantis is 8-for-10 through LSU’s first two games against Georgia with 10 RBIs.
Georgia loaded the bases in the bottom of the sixth inning, but a 6-4-3 double play turned by Robertson and senior second baseman Cole Freeman got Poche’ out of the inning.
“I was struggling,” Poche’ said. “My command was off a little bit, but they picked me up and they’ve been doing it all year. If those plays aren’t made I probably don’t make it to the seventh inning.”
For insurance, LSU tacked on one more run in the eighth inning after senior shortstop Kramer Robertson drew a bases loaded walk to extend the Tigers’ lead to 5-1.
The Tigers face Georgia once more on Sunday at 1 p.m. to close the series.
