It seemed a high-scoring battle was inevitable with the Sacred Heart baseball team’s ERA at 6.53 and batting average at .309 entering Wednesday night.
Instead, it took until the sixth inning for the No. 16 LSU team to break a 1-1 tie and separate from the Pioneers (4-4) with a 6-1 victory in the first ever matchup between the schools.
Sacred Heart freshman pitcher Nick Leiningen threw a masterful six innings of two-hit ball in his first career collegiate start.
Leiningen, a left-hander who had a 10.80 ERA in two previous relief appearances this season, fooled the Tigers (12-1) with a multitude of off-speed pitches.
“He was throwing so slow that it was very effective against us,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri. “It was slower than good hitting speed, and it just created a lot of problems for our kids.”
Mainieri said the Tigers worked successfully on hitting the ball up the middle and to the opposite field before the game to adjust to the fierce wind.
“Everybody sees this ball that looks like a beach ball coming into them, and they’re jumping out of their shoes trying to yank it,” he said. “They just totally forgot the whole plan.”
LSU junior pitcher Tyler Jones surrendered three hits and one run in seven innings, shaking off a dreadful relief appearance in a loss against Princeton where he gave up three runs in two-thirds innings.
Jones (3-0) threw four strikeouts and four walks and became the first Tiger pitcher this season to go more than 6 1/3 innings in an outing.
“I’m not really giving up runs where they’re stringing together hits,” Jones said. “Any runs that you bring on yourself, like hit batters and walks, you definitely want to eliminate those, so I hope to do that next start.”
Neither team had a hit until LSU sophomore designated hitter Raph Rhymes busted an RBI single to right field in the third inning, scoring junior left fielder Trey Watkins, who reached on an error.
Sacred Heart threatened in the top of the fourth inning with its first two hits of the game — the latter coming on a two-out hit and run which put men on the corners — but failed to score on Jones.
The Pioneers were able to get their first run and tie the game, 1-1, the next inning after a sacrifice bunt and a bunt for a base hit led to an RBI sacrifice fly to sophomore right fielder Mason Katz.
Watkins was busy on the base paths in the bottom of the sixth inning. He drew a walk, reached second base on a wild pitch, moved to third base on a groundout and made his way home on a sacrifice fly by junior third baseman Tyler Hanover to give the Tigers a 2-1 lead.
“My role is to get on base any way possible,” Watkins said. “Walks, hits, bunts — anything.”
LSU added two runs an inning to increase the lead, 4-1, with consecutive RBI singles up the middle by freshman second baseman JaCoby Jones and Watkins.
The Tigers repeated themselves in the bottom of the eighth inning with two more runs on an RBI triple by junior shortstop Austin Nola and a suicide squeeze bunt by Katz.
“All of a sudden we looked like a pretty good offensive team the last couple innings,” Mainieri said. “I think it was a really good victory for us in the way that it all developed.”
Follow Rowan Kavner on Twitter @TDR_Kavner.
 
 
 
—-
Contact Rowan Kavner at [email protected]