In its midweek tussle against Bethune-Cookman, LSU baseball played a game that felt more like a table tennis match than a baseball contest.
The Tigers fell to B-CU, 10-7, in a closely-played, back-and-forth affair. The score moved to level or gave a team a lead 10 times over the course of the night, and at least one run was scored in the first seven innings of the game.
“It’s a tough loss tonight,” head coach Jay Johnson said. “There’s no getting around that.”
LSU would strike first in its first turn to bat. Taking a pair of leadoff walks set the table for a runner to come home on an RBI single from center fielder Derek Curiel. Curiel would later start a delayed double steal that allowed right fielder Jake Brown to take home unopposed.
However, Bethune-Cookman would claim an advantage in the next inning. The Wildcats rattled six hits, all but one singles, off of three LSU pitchers to score three and take the lead.
The answer was immediate from LSU. Two baserunners got on to lead off the inning once more, and Brown delivered a hard hit single off the wall in right to square the game up at three.
A lead would come for LSU in the succeeding inning. Following his huge weekend in Tennessee, catcher Cade Arrambide just missed another homer to center field, ending up with a 404-foot double that drove Curiel in and gave LSU the lead.
That lead wouldn’t last long. In the fourth, Bethune-Cookman first baseman Jorge Rodriguez smashed a solo home run over the bleachers in left field to tie the game.
It’d take until the bottom half of the inning for LSU to wind up in front again. Shortstop Steven Milam reached on a walk to open the frame and reached third on a throwing error during a pickoff attempt. When Curiel hit a single later in the inning, it was an easy trip home for Milam to give LSU a 5-4 edge.
Once again, though, Bethune-Cookman would respond immediately.
B-CU left fielder Darryl Lee reached on a hit-by-pitch and, similar to Milam, moved up into scoring position on a throwing error from LSU pitcher Santiago Garcia. Wildcat right fielder Michael Rodriguez’s double would drive him in to tie the game.
Things cooled off for two half-innings before Brown made another impact on the game. He belted a home run to right field to lead off the sixth inning and put LSU up 6-5.
In the top of the seventh, Bethune-Cookman put up the biggest number in an inning, plating five to take a commanding lead. The inning would start with a triple from third baseman Andrey Martinez, who’d come in to score when the next batter, catcher Maikol Lucena, singled.
From there, five of the next six batters would reach base, none on hits. Two runs would come in on bases-loaded walks, and another two would score when LSU second baseman Seth Dardar, perhaps hampered by an ankle injury he sustained earlier in the game, made an error trying to field what would’ve been the third out.
“I don’t think we played great baseball,” Johnson said. “Particularly in the seventh inning.”
Faced with the biggest hole of the evening, LSU threatened to come back right away. The Tigers forced the bases loaded to start the home seventh, setting the table for the heart of the LSU batting order.
A rally was not meant to be, though. The next three batters, Milam, Brown and third baseman John Pearson, struck out, and LSU left the inning without a run.
The team could only push across one run from there, putting the stamp on the Bethune-Cookman upset victory.
“I thought we had enough to do it,” Johnson said. “We just didn’t.”
LSU has to flush the loss, with the SEC calendar rolling on, it will face Ole Miss in Oxford next for a three-game series starting on Friday.
