Thibodaux, La. — LSU junior second baseman Cole Freeman sprinted over for a chopper up the middle, which appeared to be bound for a base hit, in the bottom of the eighth inning of Wednesday night’s 9-4 win against Nicholls State.
Like he’s practiced so many times in the past, including when he was a JUCO Gold Glove winner at Delgado Community College, he extended to backhand the ball and completed a jump throw to first base for the first out of the inning.
“I feel like that play needs to be made,” Freeman said. “I don’t want to call them routine, but that’s kind of how I hold my standards.”
Freeman’s highlight play didn’t mean much to the outcome of the No. 6 Tigers’ (7-2) first midweek victory of the season. But defensive gems like that by coach Paul Mainieri’s new-look infield, mixed with shutdown relief pitching, gave the LSU offense what it needed.
Coming into the game with a 3-1 lead in the bottom of third, junior right-handed reliever Alden Cartwright kept the Colonels (4-6) at bay for three innings, while the LSU bats plated three runs in the first inning and six total runs in the middle innings enroute to a victory at Ray E. Didier Field.
Junior third baseman Kramer Robertson worked a 12-pitch walk to leadoff the top of the first. Three batters later, sophomore left fielder Beau Jordan loaded the bases with a screaming single into right field.
After the home plate umpire ruled he didn’t avoid a pitch to the shoulder, sophomore first baseman Bryce Jordan drove a two-run double down the right-field line. Sophomore designated hitter Greg Deichmann capped off the three-run inning with a sacrifice fly into deep center field.
Sophomore right-handed starter Austin Bain, however, couldn’t provide the shutdown response Mainieri often requests after big offensive innings, issuing a four-pitch walk and allowing a single to put runners on the corners. On the next at-bat, Bryce’s backhanded stab on a hard hit ground ball prevented a large inning from erupting, but the fielder’s choice plated a run.
“It could have been a big inning if Bryce didn’t make that play, I can tell you that,” Mainieri said.
Although no damage was done, Bain allowed consecutive two-out singles in the bottom of the second, escaping the inning on runner’s interference call on another sharply hit ball.
“[Bain’s] command was off, again,” Mainieri said. “He comes out and throws good warmup pitches, and then the first four pitches of the game are over the kid’s head. He just loses his release point, he’s got to correct that.”
Cartwright relieved Bain after facing the Colonels just once through the order, and Cartwright also allowed a walk on the first hitter he saw. But the third-year reliever picked off Nicholls second baseman Ethan Valdez as he leaned too far of the bag, and Robertson dove to tag out Valdez as he slid into third base.
Cartwright then struck out Colonel third baseman Kyle Reese to end the frame and retired the side in order in the fourth, punching out the final two hitters of the inning.
“[My] first inning was big, but the second inning was the biggest because we just put up a bunch of runs,” Cartwright said. “When a team is down, you got to put the cleat in their throat … Don’t let them breathe.”
Despite stranding a pair of runners in the third, Freeman smoked a leadoff double over Colonel left fielder Gavin Wehby’s head, starting a three-run fourth inning for the Tigers. Nicholls recorded back-to-back errors, the second of which scored Freeman.
After a bunt single by freshman right fielder Antoine Duplantis, Beau’s RBI fielder’s choice and Bryce’s RBI sacrifice fly pushed the score to 6-1.
“Those two Jordan boys, it’s almost hard to separate them when you talk about them because they’re the same kind of fierce competitors,” Mainieri said. “They almost will their team to win.”
Aided by a pair of extra base hits, LSU padded its lead in the fifth. Deichmann bounced a triple down the right field line and later scored on freshman third baseman O’Neal Lochridge’s sacrifice fly. Freeman then picked up his third hit of the game, and junior center fielder Jake Fraley banged a run-scoring triple two hitters later.
After LSU added its ninth run in the sixth on a wild pitch, sophomore Doug Norman put up zeros in the bottom of the sixth and seventh. Nicholls scratched three runs across in the final two innings, but the game was out of reach by then.
Relief pitching and defensive highlights lead to an LSU win against Nicholls, 9-4
By James Bewers
March 2, 2016
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