Call it contagious, call it getting hot or call it feasting on weakening starting pitching. Whatever it’s called, LSU’s baseball team has made a habit this young season of using a big offensive inning in the middle of games to provide the team’s margin of victory.Sunday’s game at Alex Box was no different, as the Tigers strung together a four-run sixth inning off tiring Brown pitcher Rob Wilcox en route to a 9-2 victory in front of 6,150 fans.The No. 2 Tigers (11-0) are off to their best start since 1997, when LSU started the season with a 19-0 mark. The win was also LSU’s 17th-straight home victory, dating back to last season.”We came out sluggish,” said LSU sophomore right fielder Mikie Mahtook, noting it was the Tigers’ first noon start of the season. “It was just one of those days where we had to wake up. Coach [Paul Mainieri] got into us a little bit in the dugout, and once we got a couple of hits, we just went from there.”After the Tigers’ slow offensive start in the first three innings, LSU put across a run in both the fourth and fifth innings to tie the game.LSU sophomore second baseman Tyler Hanover started the sixth with a one-out single before junior center fielder Leon Landry hit his second triple of the day, giving the Tigers a 3-2 lead.Mahtook followed Landry by hitting his second home run of the season, a two-run lined shot that caught the top of the wall and bounced over to give LSU a 5-2 lead. The Tigers added another run on a two-out single by sophomore shortstop Austin Nola.”Fortunately, the guys shook themselves and got refocused,” Mainieri said. “We started to swing the bat in the middle innings well.”Defensively for the Tigers, freshman pitcher Jordan Rittiner threw six innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on nine hits while striking out two.While the southpaw limited the Bears to two runs on the afternoon, the damage could have been much worse.
Brown got both of its runs in the second inning, one on a no-out blooper single by third baseman Cody Slaughter that fell just over the head of Hanover. The other came on a single to left field by center fielder Nick Punal.Rittiner put himself into a bind in the fourth and fifth innings, though he gave up no runs. He loaded the bases with two outs in the fourth but got out of the jam by getting Brown shortstop Graham Tyler to pop out to right field.In the fifth, Rittiner again ran into trouble, giving up a pair of no-out singles before inducing a double play and getting a  groundout to end the inning.”I wasn’t locating my pitches really well,” Rittiner said. “We had a lot of big plays in the infield, including a couple of big double plays. The defense did phenomenal behind me.”Brown strung together a few hits late in the game but left nine men on base.”We had our chances. We had men on base all day,” said Brown coach Marek Drabinski. “Our defense did well, and our pitchers did well. We just couldn’t get the big hit.On Friday and Saturday nights, it was junior catcher Micah Gibbs who provided the Tigers with a spark for a pair of victories.Gibbs went 3-for-3 with a pair of RBI and two runs in a 13-7 win against Brown on Friday night. Both of those RBI came via a double in the Tigers’ eight-run second inning and put LSU ahead, 5-0, at the time.The junior from Pflugerville, Texas, then put together another two RBI performance that helped provide the margin of victory in a 3-2 win against Pepperdine on Saturday night.”I’ve just been swinging hard and taking the approaches our coaches have been giving us,” Gibbs said. “So far it’s been working out.”LSU sophomore right-hander Joey Bourgeois (2-0) threw seven innings of one-hit ball for the Tigers to get the victory on the mound while sophomore closer Matty Ott got the save in relief. Ott gave up a two-run home run before picking up the save.—-Contact Andy Schwehm at [email protected]