After an opening weekend sweep plagued with inconsistencies at the plate and stranded runners, LSU coach Paul Mainieri didn’t panic.
He had seen it in each of his previous 32 seasons. Offense almost always lagged behind when his team started its seasons and he knew it wouldn’t be long before the action at the plate matched the Tigers’ fast starts on the mound and in the field
The time to catch up was Saturday.
The LSU offense struck early and often, relentlessly gashing four erratic Toledo pitchers to the tune of 16 hits to cruise to a 15-1 win in Alex Box Stadium.
“It’s pretty obvious that no one’s really nervous anymore,” said senior right fielder Sean McMullen. “The crowd, opening night emotions, those are pretty much gone. We’re just sticking to the baseball that I knew we could play … We got more than nine players that we could put out there and really swing it.”
There were more than nine Saturday as Mainieri was able to empty his bench by the fifth inning, playing 16 position players and four pitchers.
Junior Tiger southpaw Kyle Bouman tossed six innings of one-run ball, surrendering seven hits and striking out three.
Bouman allowed leadoff singles in the first four innings he worked and loaded the bases in the second before spotting Toledo its first run on an RBI single from left fielder Zack Michael.
“Fastball location was working tonight,” Bouman said. “I had to make some pitches in some crucial spots and my defense helped me. It’s really all credit to them tonight.”
Trailing 1-0 after the second, the Tigers unleashed 15 unanswered runs to close out the game, highlighted by an eight-run fifth that saw 12 Tigers come to the plate to crank out six hits.
Freshman second baseman Kramer Robertson notched the first hit and RBI of his LSU career to lead the scoring off in the second, sending a screamer down the third base line to score sophomore center fielder Andrew Stevenson and knot the game at one.
Stevenson followed suit in the third, capping a long battle with Toledo pitcher Cameron Palmer with a full count triple to the wall to score two. Robertson followed with another RBI single to drive Stevenson in and put LSU up 4-1.
The Stevenson-Robertson duo — hitting eighth and ninth in the Tiger order, respectively — combined for a 4-for-8 evening with 4 RBIs.
“I’m trying to be aggressive at the plate, still feeling good and continuing to keep going,” Stevenson said. “I tried to make pitchers work and hit the ball hard.”
LSU tacked on three more in the fourth after consecutive RBI doubles from sophomore shortstop Alex Bregman and junior second baseman Conner Hale and a throwing error on Kade Scivicque’s infield single to make it 7-1.
Then came the knockout blow in the fifth as all but one Tiger starter who came to the plate scored a run. McMullen put a bow on the inning with a bases loaded double, sending all three runners home and giving the Tigers a 14-1 lead.
“Once we got into the [Toledo] bullpen, I felt more confident about the game,” Mainieri said. “There were several big hits there early when the game was still somewhat in doubt. I thought our guys showed a lot of poise and battled hard.”