On Tuesday night, the LSU Tigers took on the Southeastern Louisiana Lions and let the bats shine, adding another mid-week matchup win to the books with a mercy rule.
In another routine matchup, the Tigers struck first early with a leadoff homer for Derek Curiel. After a standout performance Sunday afternoon, his bat was still on fire. Hitting his sixth homer of the season, it looked like it would be another good night for the offense.
“I mean dominating our routine and being really good at things you can control,” Jay Johnson said. “ Really having self control to step into the box with a clear mind and I thought we ran the bases great tonight.”
Immediately after, Jared Jones took to the plate and crushed the ball 444 ft. into left field, adding the second tally to the score, with the Southeastern pitching staff not being able to find a way to get the Tigers tripped up.
With no outs and four runs on the board, the Southeastern Lions used starting pitcher Chase Ambrose, but once Stevan Milam took to the plate, grounding out into a double play, the Tigers saw the bottom of the first quickly coming to an end after Michael Braswell lined out to shortstop.
After that, the Lions seemed to keep barely missing the balls, allowing the Tigers to steal extra bases and get into those ideal scoring positions earlier and earlier.
LSU’s speed between bases and strong at bats to keep the runs going and avoid strikeouts.
In the fourth inning, the Tigers plated five earned runs to bring the score to 10-2 LSU early, with a mercy rule ready to go early in the game, even with a scoreless third inning. The Tigers were playing easily and comfortably, and Jay Johnson even tapped into his bullpen early on.
This allowed William Schmidt to be relieved from the mound after only 3.1 innings pitched, seven strikeouts, and 43 pitches. Then, DJ Primeaux came onto the mound, although he only threw for one inning, picked up three strikeouts and had only one hit.
Utilizing four different pitchers throughout the game, Jaden Noot appeared with 19 pitches, no hits and three strikeouts. Followed up by Conner Ware to close out the game with 12 pitches, one strikeout and one hit.
On the other hand, the Southeastern Lions used four pitchers, but none could nail down the Tigers well enough to accumulate strikeouts. It seemed like the Lions were playing in slow motion, but the Tigers quickly clocked the slow-motion playing and only let them have two scoring innings.
In the seventh inning, at the bottom of the lineup with the Tigers up to bat with a still 10-2 score, Jay Johnson decided to have an almost complete lineup change. Taking out key players like Curiel and Jones to put in pinch hitters paid off, with Ethan Frey hitting the walk-off grand slam to enact the mercy rule.
LSU won 15-2, taking another win going into the weekend. Starting Friday evening, LSU will play on the road against Texas A&M.
