No. 7 LSU did what it needed to do Tuesday night to secure a win over McNeese at Alex Box Stadium. However, the Tigers’ performance still looked shaky after a tough weekend in Auburn.
LSU started strong, scoring two runs in the first inning, with Jared Jones hitting his 12th home run of the season on the first pitch thrown to him of the night with Derek Curiel on base.
“It’s big not just for me but for the team,” Jones said. “I think we didn’t score till the seventh inning over the weekend, so to go out there and score in the first inning was big.”
However, despite holding the lead through the first four innings, the Tigers never quite looked in control. Subpar defense, inconsistent pitching and a quiet night offensively kept the Cowboys in the game longer than expected.
LSU managed 13 hits on the night, and most of its runs came from timely mistakes by McNeese’s pitching staff and the Tigers leaning into walks.
Although the Cowboys stayed consistent behind the bat, they had some problems with their pitching throughout the game. They used eight pitchers, and their combined strikeouts were only four.
“I knew before that they were going to throw in a billion pitchers, that’s kind of been their thing in mid-week matchups,” Johnson said. “We really honed in on what the guys do well and then try to bring them back to what they know.”
Four singles in the fourth inning provided some breathing room, allowing runners to be in a good scoring position to steal bases and open the score up to 8-2. Still, LSU struggled to capitalize with runners in scoring position, stranding multiple opportunities to break the game open.
William Schmidt got the start on the mound and worked through three shaky innings, allowing two runs and five hits. The bullpen had to be utilized to escape a fourth inning that looked like there was no end in sight, with Connor Benge coming in to clean up the rest of the fourth.
Maverik Rizy locked with six strikeouts and only one allowed hit in his two-inning appearance, but McNeese hitters made LSU pitchers work for nearly every out; for the last two innings, the bullpen was in full swing, switching out hitters, even if it was just got a fraction of an inning.
After switching out Schmidt, the Cowboys had a combined seven scoreless innings even after every pitching change, which gave LSU more comfort in the score gap and finally allowed them to break out the single-digit runs.
Defensively, LSU committed no errors and had several hits that flew past them in moments that didn’t cost the Tigers the game but could’ve been more damaging against a stronger opponent.
The scoring for the majority of the night came from the front half of the game. The most runs were four in the fourth inning, but after that, it was either no runs at all or only one in the inning.
Still, a win is a win, and they secured that with a 10-3 victory over the Cowboys.
LSU will look to clean things up before returning to conference action this weekend as the Tigers prepare to host the Alabama in a crucial three-game series at Alex Box starting on Thursday night.
