Coming into Sunday’s rubber game against Houston, LSU outfielder Jon Zeringue had not been satisfied with his performance in the previous two games.
The junior right-fielder had hit 4-for-9 on the weekend with three RBIs, but he said he had numerous check swing at-bats that had kept him up at night.
Zeringue will rest easier after Sunday’s 3-for-4 performance, which included a home run, triple, double and three more RBIs in leading the Tigers to an 8-2 win over the Cougars at Alex Box Stadium.
“I’ll sleep better tonight, definitely,” said Zeringue, who finished a single short of hitting for the cycle.
With the win, the Tigers took the series 2-1 from the Cougars after winning Friday 9-3 and falling on Saturday 10-5. The Tigers’ loss on Saturday snapped a nine-game winning streak.
Smoke Laval was pleased with how the Tigers responded Sunday afternoon, slapping 15 hits and playing error-free after committing four errors Saturday.
“This was very good,” Laval said. “It shows they have a little bit of character. It’s still a new season here and they needed to check their guts. They’re trying to find their identity and they showed me a lot.”
Senior right-hander Nate Bumstead earned the win and carried a shutout into the ninth inning before allowing two runs in the ninth. He went 8 1/3 innings with seven strikeouts before Jason Determann got the final two outs in mop-up duty.
“I was doing fine there for the first seven innings, and then I kind of hit a wall there [in the ninth],” Bumstead said. “My velocity dropped and I was laboring a little bit out there. Smoke is trying to get us to throw as much as we can and get our pitch counts up.”
Bumstead (2-0) threw 119 pitches, 76 of them for strikes in his second start of the season.
“Once I got in the game I felt pretty good,” he said. “I felt like the ball was jumping out of my hand.”
Laval said he only planned for Bumstead to throw around 110 pitches, but he wanted to give the right-hander a chance at the complete-game shutout.
“His arm was tired,” Laval said. “It was tired in the seventh. I could see that. That was the plan. Getting it a little bit tired is the only way you’re going to strengthen it for later on.”
Bumstead got plenty of run support.
The Tigers put three runs on the board in the first. J.C. Holt and Ryan Patterson singled to open the inning and Blake Gill walked to load the bases. Holt scored on a wild pitch and Matt Liuzza drove in the other two with a two-run single. Liuzza hit 6-for-13 on the weekend with four RBIs.
The score was 3-0 until the sixth when Zeringue launched a two-run home run off the scoreboard in right field for a 5-0 lead. Shortstop Derek Hebert also singled and came around to score in the sixth when Patterson hit into a double play.
LSU scored two more in the seventh on Zeringue’s RBI triple and an RBI groundout from Hebert. Zeringue also doubled in the fourth after grounding out in his first at-bat.
“I screwed myself with that first at-bat,” he said. “I guess I kind of made up for it with my other at-bats.”