NEW ORLEANS – The No. 8 LSU baseball team had no answer for No. 20 Tulane’s 6-foot-1 sophomore righty J.P. France in Baton Rouge, or 80 miles away at the Green Wave’s Turchin Stadium.
For the second time in as many meetings, France suffocated the Tiger offense, tossing 7.1 innings of one-run baseball with six strikeouts in Tulane’s 4-1 win Tuesday night.
“Like I said, you give credit where credit is due,” said junior shortstop Kramer Robertson. “They’ve beaten twice. They outplayed us both times.”
Including the Green Wave’s 7-1 win in Baton Rouge on March 29, France has held LSU to one run and 10 hits in 13.1 innings. Tiger coach Paul Mainieri couldn’t put a finger on what France is doing to quiet his club’s bats.
“I don’t know,” Mainieri said. “He threw the ball over the plate, and we couldn’t hit him. That’s two games in a row that we just couldn’t solve him. He threw strikes. He threw his fastball and some curve balls for strikes, and we just couldn’t square them up.”
Looking to cement a fourth starter, Mainieri gave the starting nod to sophomore righty Doug Norman, and he did his part through 3.2 innings.
Norman worked a clean, nine-pitch first inning, but a leadoff walk in the second helped Tulane scratch an early run across.
After Norman lost Green Wave center fielder Jeremy Montalbano on a full count, third baseman Hunter Hope then sent a one-out double into the left-field corner, putting runners in scoring position. A batter later, first baseman Hunter Williams plated a run on a fielder’s choice.
Norman, though, remained unfazed in his remaining 1.2 innings, working around a two-out walk in third and punching out Hope on a 2-2 breaking ball for the second out of the fourth inning.
The strikeout of Hope, which occurred with a man in scoring position, would be the last hitter Norman would face, as Tiger freshman right-hander Caleb Gilbert replaced him after 49 pitches.
While Norman kept the Tigers within reach, France carried his dominant six-inning start in his last meeting through his first five innings of work Tuesday, retiring 14 of the first 16 batters he faced.
LSU notched a pair of singles in the fourth but was unable to advance either runners, as junior center fielder Jake Fraley was gunned out by Tulane catcher Jake Rogers on a steal attempt with one out.
Gilbert would return for the fifth and recorded the first two outs of the frame, but consecutive two-out singles paved the way for a two-run inning.
Montalbano drove an RBI single through left side to plate Rogers, which brought out Mainieri for another pitching change.
Then, right fielder Lex Kaplan tapped a ground ball back to sophomore righty Jesse Stallings, and Stallings fired one by the glove of sophomore first baseman Greg Deichmann, allowing a run to score and putting LSU in a 3-0 hole.
“I mean, [the throw] was kind of in the basepath,” Stallings said. “It was kind of iffy. I mean, it was there, but, at the same time, Deichmann didn’t want to get hit [by the baserunner]. That’s part of it. It just happens. People are going to make mistakes. Nobody’s perfect. I could have made a better throw. It just was one of those bad luck things.”
Freshman infielder Brody Wofford replaced Deichmann — who is 1-for-16 with five strikeouts since a three-run home run against Southeastern — to start the bottom of the seventh.
LSU would briefly show life in the top half of the sixth, as freshman third baseman Chris Reid poked a leadoff double and freshman right fielder Antoine Duplatis pushed a one-out single into left field.
But Tulane shortstop Stephen Alemais, whose highlight double play quelled a bases-loaded threat in the first game, was positioned perfectly to step on second base and turn another double play.
The Green Wave then abruptly padded their lead in bottom half of the sixth, as second baseman Jake Wilsey hammered Stallings’ 1-2 offering for a solo home run.
France continued to command in the seventh, striking out a pair in the frame and returning for the eighth on 88 pitches.
France ran into trouble when he conceded a leadoff single and a one-out walk in the eighth, ending his night on 102 pitches. But relievers Sam Bjorngjeld and Patrick Duester combined to limit LSU’s last scoring opportunity to only one run.