A nine-inning gem from sophomore right-hander Alex Lange wasn’t enough for the No. 5 LSU baseball team to win on Saturday night.
Mississippi State right-hander Austin Sexton had much to do with that.
Sexton held the Tigers (26-13, 9-8 Southeastern Conference to a mere five hits and one run in 7.1 innings, while a sixth-inning fielding error doomed LSU in a 2-1 loss to the Bulldogs (27-12-1, 10-7 SEC). The series loss to the Mississippi State is the first in the Paul Mainieri era, having won the previous nine series against the Bulldogs.
Lange and Sexton handcuffed the opposing offenses throughout much of each hurler’s start. But, similarly to last night, the Bulldogs grabbed an early lead on one swing, as designated hitter Jack Kruger hammered Lange’s 0-1 fastball off the Left Field Landing banner.
Lange, who struck out six and allowed just four hits, said he spotted the pitch in the right location, but Kruger made the adjustment.
“I went in, and he got the barrell to it,” Lange said. “It happens. Solo homers aren’t going to beat you. Walks will, and we showed that tonight.”
However, Lange settled in the next four inning. From the final two outs of the first to the end of the fifth, the second-year righty retired 14-of-15 hitters, including 10 in a row.
Through his first five innings, he didn’t allow the leadoff man to get on base and allowed only two hits.
“I felt like it was one of my better commanded games,” Lange said. “My breaking ball was good, my changeup was good and I was locating on both sides of the plate. I just kind of settled into a groove there.”
Meanwhile, the Tiger offense had no answer for Sexton’s arsenal of pitches, as he held LSU scoreless through his first seven innings.
LSU had two baserunners – a first-inning single and a two-out walk in the fourth – through the first four innings, and wasn’t able to advance a runner into scoring position after a leadoff single in the top of the fifth.
“[Sexton] doesn’t have dominant stuff,” said junior shortstop Kramer Robertson. “But his location tonight was dominant.”
Sexton, who suffered a hamstring injury in Bulldogs’ previous series, held the Tigers to an 0-for-6 clip with runners on in his first seven innings, none of which were in scoring position.
Lange entered the sixth having thrown 36 of 51 pitches for strikes, but a defensive miscue helped the Bulldogs scratch their second run across.
LSU sophomore first baseman Greg Deichmann’s foot came off the bag on a routine throw to first base from Robertson.
“The throw didn’t pull me off,” Deichmann said. “It was just a little pull of my leg. It wasn’t a bad throw. Like I said, I thought I held the bag.”
Then, Lange conceded a single and a walk to load the bases, paving the way for Mississippi State left fielder Reid Humphrey’s RBI sacrifice fly.
With a clear view of it from the dugout, Mainieri said Deichmann’s foot was off the bag “by six inches.”
“We don’t play the defense for [Lange] like they played for their guys,” Mainieri said. “Basically, we lost the game because our first baseman couldn’t keep his foot on the base on a routine play, on a perfect throw, and that ends up being the winning run.”
Lange, though, kept plugging away.
He retired the side in the seventh and stranding a runner at third base with back-to-back strikeouts in the eighth. With sophomore Beau Jordan — who was a pregame scratch due to an illness — pinch hitting, the LSU bats found life in the bottom half of the eighth.
Jordan singled and became the Tigers’ first runner in scoring position, later scoring on Jake Fraley’s RBI fielder’s choice. But Mississippi State lefty reliever Daniel Brown, who replaced Sexton before Fraley’s at-bat, induced an inning-ending flyout to strand a runner at third base.
Feeling as strong as he felt in the previous inning, Lange returned for the ninth and sat the Bulldogs in order, including his sixth and seventh strikeouts. LSU, though, couldn’t tie the game after Robertson’s one-out double in the ninth, as he was left stranded at third base.
“In SEC games, there’s just no margin for error,” Mainieri said. “You have to play really good, solid, fundamentally-sound baseball. We played a really good game for the most part. Not so much swinging, of course, but everything else. But one little mistake, there’s the run and we lose, 2-1.”